


Out of the dimness

by Caritas_Lavellan



Series: Earth Mind [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Eventual Smut, F/M, POV Solas, Romance, Starts at Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-07-11 05:19:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 48
Words: 54,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7030597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caritas_Lavellan/pseuds/Caritas_Lavellan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The idea was ridiculous, irresponsible and selfish; callous, cruel and heartless. But losing her would…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Three scythes at harvest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virlath Lavellan Time (VLT):  
> 7 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon; Day 2 of the Exalted Council /
> 
> Caritas Lavellan Time (CLT):  
>  _missing, presumed deleted_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you would like to understand how this story fits into the rest of [Earth Mind](http://archiveofourown.org/series/306273), read the series notes for that and [Earth Mind: Alternative Perspectives](http://archiveofourown.org/series/711108). This story begins in time around the middle of [Chapter 37](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/13657843) of Not that kind of wolf, from Solas’ point of view. If you’ve read everything in [Not that kind of wolf](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/11178601) up to Chapter 56, it’s safe to read this without spoiling that until I indicate otherwise. Nothing in this first chapter is a spoiler for anything - unless you haven't played the Trespasser DLC.
> 
> The title and chapter headings come from Walt Whitman’s [Song of Myself](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Myself), for reasons that will either immediately make sense or may become clear eventually. As ever, characters and setting are the property of Bioware, with the exception of… well, I won’t spoil it if you don’t.

Fen’Harel - _Dread Wolf, Bringer of Nightmares_ \- hounded the last remaining Qunari karashok over the paths and into the only active eluvian, and followed through scarce seconds later. His current prey staggered, leaving heavy gouts of crimson blood on rugs and marble tiles, before ramming the vault’s closed door so hard it flew off its hinges and crashed to the floor. The man made for the only open window, two floors up.

 _Violence is a means to an end,_ Solas reminded himself, stooping down to hide the bloody daggers in his hands underneath a dustcover. _It is not appropriate to celebrate. I am merely… relieved._

His hood-and-cloak disguise was too much of a risk within the Winter Palace grounds. Shifting into raven form, Solas flew out – in time to see the warrior half-falling, half-clambering down the trellis, racing for shelter, heedless of wounds and flowerpots alike. He’d chosen this one as the strongest, the one best suited to his plan: the one least likely to leap off the edge in panic when pursued across the Crossroads.

_This might work, after all. I have to get her attention, fast. It’s this or see her mouth sewn up._

Spreading his wings, he glided on to the roof of the nearby building where one of his agents had been talking with Charter, and waited. The Qunari ran towards him, as any well-trained warrior would. It was the nearest corner from which to hide from any magic (or well-aimed knives) thrown from the open window.  

Charter was loyal, to the Divine and the Inquisitor, not him; and that fact might be useful too, as this played out. Both agents, hearing the loud crash of the balustrade upon the ground, had started running towards the warrior, knives sparkling with reflected sunlight in their hands, forcing the desperate man through the nearby open doorway into a storage room with no way out.  

_What was that ridiculous line I span? I do adore the heady blend of power, intrigue, danger and…_

  * _Ridiculous indeed. Focus on the task, Dread Wolf._



He flew down to perch upon the window sill, resolving to flutter off convincingly if any of them looked in his direction, or if a mage – or anyone sensitive to disruptions in the Veil – approached. _She_ was listening to depositions at the Exalted Council, he had no doubt, but he wouldn’t put it beyond Dorian or Cole to have got bored and wandered off. Though… yesterday Cole had fed him breadcrumbs while _she_ was standing there and neither of them had noticed. That had been the closest he had been to her for years, and…

  * _Focus. I know that you can hear me when you’re this close to the Anchor._



…and he had seen the sadness in her eyes, even as she hid it to wish joy to Cole and Maryden…

  * _We used to talk, you know. Converse. Confer. Confide._



…and though he hadn’t ever read her mind, and never would, he knew right then that she still…

  * _You’re far too old for her. Too old for this kind of…_



_And you’re a memory! Not even alive. I killed you._

  * _But I do exist... Regardless, she can’t come with you. **You** know that. Come on, please. Focus._



_I know. I know! It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt._

  * _Accept the pain. Move on. That’s what you’d tell yourself. What are they doing now?_



He found his bird’s eyes had adjusted rapidly to the shadows inside the room, observed through diamond shutters, appropriately enough, and to the brighter range of colours he could perceive. Charter efficiently disarmed the warrior, now slumped beside an Andrastian shrine, his back to the wall, and almost gone. She told her colleague – another female elf: Leliana’s Quilter; _his_ Médée – to fetch the Divine and the Inquisitor independently, no doubt using a prearranged strategy agreed between them all for emergencies.

They’d had many such strategies in the days when he was part of the Inquisition, and from all accounts he’d read, they hadn’t changed the frameworks that they worked to. Both agents were observant and would have seen that most of the wounds were magical in nature. But even Médée would scarcely guess who’d had a hand – or two – in this: she thought that she was working for a noble in Orlais, not the feared Dread Wolf.

  * _Not even the Inquisitor knows who you really are. And that’s just what you wanted, isn’t it?_



_“If we are still alive afterwards, I promise that everything will be made clear.”_

  * _You fool. Why did you promise that? Do you think she would be happier if she knew?_



_I was in… I am in… What we had was **real**. I owe her… something, don’t I? Besides…_

  * _Besides?_



_She’s going to die if I don’t remove the mark. Very soon, in fact. That’s why I went to look at her. One reason._

  * _You could just knock her out and cut her hand off. Probably less painful for her that way, too._



_Less painful physically, perhaps, but if it were me…_

  * _…you’d want to know the truth. You always did go in for self-sacrifice. Should she have to?_



_If there’s even the slightest chance I’ve got it wrong, that I don’t have to carry out this plan, I have to give them all the chance to stop me. Also, we need them to stop the Qunari invasion of the South._

  * _Using her again, I see._



_You know I take no joy in this._

His gaze rested on the karashok’s bleeding chest, thoroughly embittered by it all. _In another world, you wouldn’t have been a mindless drone, and I wouldn’t have had to do this._ The raven waited patiently, from caution and respect, until the Qunari’s spirit departed. No words had passed his lips, but the blood trail left on stones and trellis, tiles and silk would be plain enough for the Inquisitor to follow.

He’d made sure of that.

  
  



	2. Surfaces and depths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 7 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _missing, presumed deleted_

Exhausted, out of breath, heart aching, Fen’Harel slunk back through the eluvian that led to Aratishan. The citadel there lay deep within the Tirashan at the western reaches of Orlais. Far from the mirages he’d cast out for her to read; far from the Deep Roads and Qunari; far from the Anchor, far from _her_. Padding on silent, bleeding, paws to the moonlit arbour, he changed back into elvhen form and sat upright in a chair.

A minute passed in silence, where he gazed up at the stars, heavy with regret. No words crossed his mind.

Then, reaching deep below the shell of his flesh for one last effort, he called out.

 

_An hour until the pain is gone. An hour until... everything… is gone._

_Can you hear me?_

_Are you there?_

_My friend?_

Nothing answered; no-one spoke.

The Dread Wolf looked at the bare stone table to the side of him, that in happier times would have been wreathed in scented flowers, lit with veilfire, with an overflowing bowl of grapes and cherries in the centre.

He looked up at the citadel, sat straight-backed, did not weep; opened the eluvian; and waited.

 

A hand dropped upon his shoulder briefly, tightening there in wordless sympathy. _Ir Abelas._

Fen’Harel nodded to Abelas, carefully inflecting the ancient elven words with the appropriate notes of acceptance, surprise, approval. “You followed me from the Crossroads. You are joining me.”

“I am, my lord,” responded Abelas, going on one knee in front of him. “I cannot seek another name, while sorrow lies so heavy on this world.”

“Stand up, please. You should know that the orb is gone. I was too weak to unlock it after my slumber. The failure was _mine_ ,” he insisted, repeating words that echoed in his mind each night, unanswered.

Abelas did not stand up. “It was _not_ failure. It was Mythal’s will. You must use her power to save the People and restore us. You saw the Songs preserved within her sanctuary. We waited for you, Falon’Din.”

He sighed, the old title – the _other_ old title, both his and not his – like the final death knell on his soul.

“Is that what you honestly believe? You alone, or all of you?”

The sentinel inclined his head in assent. “All of us. Remove the vallaslin, so we may serve you.”

Behind Abelas, in the courtyard of the citadel, the remainder of Mythal’s sentinels – _barely a dozen, now_ – manifested, dropping silently to their knees in multiple reflection of their leader.

“That’s all of you?” he asked, remembering a time when Mythal’s people were ten million strong.

“All of us who were inside when the doors to her sanctuary closed, and could be woken. After we left, we looked for any who might have survived the war, outside. I thought I’d found Felassan, once, but…”

“I know what happened to Felassan,” interrupted Fen’Harel. “I…”

_Focus on the task, Dread Wolf._

He dug the nails of his fingers deep into his elbows, hard, biting down the grief and widening the bleeding cuts along his arms. He’d been ambushed by an assassin in the Deep Roads following his final acts of sabotage: ripping paper and skin alike with sharp wolf teeth, draining lava from the walls. Blood dripped on the ground, and Abelas frowned down at it. He remembered it used to be rude to bleed in the presence of others, and thought about not caring. With a sigh, he healed the wounds, and closed the eluvian again.

_No time to play for time._

Stretching out his hands to cast the spell, his head held high, he remembered the last time he had done this, with _her_ , and the first trials on himself, and the casting of the Veil as well. _So many deaths, so little time._

Just before he cast the spell, he paused, and gestured in front of Abelas’ face for the man to meet his gaze, saying softly: “You understand that there is no return from this. I cannot restore how Mythal protected you.”

“We understand. In time, if fate is kind, we will serve a new Mythal, her daughter. The one who walked at your side to the Vir’Abelasan.”

 _Of course. Morrigan._ “And you understand that she is _shemlen_ , and what that then means?”

“You can make her elvhen,” said Abelas, a flash of triumph lighting up his golden eyes.

Drawn out from the depths of his melancholy, he resisted the urge to chuckle, or tweak the man’s chin. For the first time in ten thousand years, Abelas had taken him by surprise. _Maybe there **is** hope._

“I can make her elvhen,” he agreed, slowly, playing for the time he did not have. “Will you aid me?”

“That is why I came. I know the rites. We also brought a copy of the _Vir Uthsulahn_ for you to use. Complete.”

 _Mythal’enaste,_ she’d preserved a copy _. Well, that changes… everything._ Bare minutes left before the split must take effect again, not that Abelas would know that yet. The voice was always first to disappear, then the swathes of magic linked to it, and then his connection to the Fade, his emotions, all of it.

The Nightmare crawled closer, called to the power Mythal gave him, using his despair and terror – and that bright dazzling flare of _hope_ – as a guide to find him. Fen’Harel stilled the beating of his heart, slowing the demon’s progress, and felt the awful calmness creeping round instead.

“I will do it,” he said, suddenly, the words a double-edged sword in his mouth. An image flashed before his eyes, of scales of justice on its tip: in one bowl Morrigan; in the other, his Virlath; each one a _din’anshiral_.

The image faded, and he cast the spell to take the markings from the sentinel’s face, the arboreal memento of his millennia of service. The man was shaking, barely managing to keep his nerve, and he remembered: _There are other places, friend. Other duties. Your people still linger._

“I grant you your freedom, Abelas. Though you should know that you were already free.”

“I know, my lord. I always served her willingly. Now, by my own choice, I serve you too.”

He stood up, formally embracing his new follower, then walked around the other sentinels, repeating his actions and removing their vallaslin. Had the Nightmare not been searching in the Fade, so _close_ , he’d have cried at this as well, that _he_ should be the one to undo all that Mythal had sacrificed to keep them safe.

“No women?” he said quietly, to Abelas when he’d finished, and once they had directed the other sentinels to spirits who would show them where to sleep. “Wasn’t there at least one with you? A guide.”

“She fell, soon after, cut down by the invaders. She gave her life for others to escape.”

“I found no other women either,” said Fen’Harel, letting himself abandon his connection to the Fade. “It seems that fate has given me no choice but to accept your offer of the _Vir Uthsulahn_.”

But Abelas shook his head, as he followed after the men he’d brought. “Nothing is inevitable.”

And as the last emotions faded away, to awaken only tomorrow when his duty would force him to the Crossroads once again, the last day of this soul within this body, Fen’Harel drifted into dreamless sleep.

  
  



	3. This day before dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 8 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _missing, presumed deleted_

He woke with the dawn as usual, a fact he forced himself to observe as calmly as the other facts: his muscles were stiff; his robes creased and bloody; in an hour his spymaster would approach across the courtyard. He did not normally sleep in this hard wooden chair within the garden arbour, but it was immaterial.

Everything must lose its meaning, if not connected with his duty.

Soft grey-violet light heralded the sunrise, the exact same colour as the Inquisitor’s eyes. It was the only tribute he’d allow himself to pay in honour of this day. No-one else would see the significance of that: one more meaningless gesture in a world of moths and butterflies; of pride, desire and fear.

_Just enough chaos for everyone to gain their freedom, and it turns my plans to ash._

_If you will insist you’re not a god, and surrender half the Fade to demons, what did you expect?_

_Every alternative was worse. There’s still **some** hope for restoration._

That bright flare of hope he’d doused last night – that he might save _her,_ too, and all the other shemlen – needed no further quenching in the violet light of day. Her eyes were just a memory, writ large.

He sat down on the ground to meditate, but found it hard to concentrate against the rising tide of panic. Dawn brought respite; moonrise brought the Nightmare. So what if Abelas knew the rites to make a person elvhen? The Nightmare would take hostage any elvhen bound in an emotional entanglement with him, and even using the eluvian network could only delay pursuit so long.

_If she still loves you, then she can’t know who you are, or what you did, or what you plan to do._

_Contrapositively, if she knows who you are, what you did, and what you plan, she’ll never love you again._

_I tell her today. She deserves to know. She **needs** to know. She deserves: to live; a better man; some final peace; a few years of her adult life without the Anchor; some closure. _

_I should have paid the price, but..._




_I will save the elven people. They trusted me. There is nothing left but that. If only it did not mean…_




_I **cannot** kill them all. Not now that I know that they are people too._




_Indeed. The alternatives are worse, the pull of the abyss too strong. I must._




_How can I bear the **next** ten thousand years until I see her once again? Or twenty, thirty, eighty thousand?_

  * _One… day… at... a… time. Just… breathe._



****

The hour had passed, and slowly, for the millionth time, he’d wrestled his own mind into acceptance.

He opened his eyes, not to dead elvhen or the ghost of Virlath’s smile, but to the day’s sheaf of reports, approaching across the garden with his spymaster, and water, and a spirit, and a bowl of nuts and berries.

Solas took the sheaf, requesting – as he had done every day for months – that the spymaster return in half an hour for further orders. The first one was in his own handwriting, marked for his perusal for today – his orders to himself, quadruple-sealed with magic, wax, blood and cipher. Nothing could be judged by that: he always sealed such letters, trusting no-one.

No-one but he would know it was his last day: the last day he would merely be pretending lack of feeling; the last day he’d see _her_. The violet sky had already brightened into blue, and time ticked on.

What was it he’d said, two years ago? _Harden your heart to a cutting edge, and put that pain to good use._

_It seems I needed to hear that too._

He broke the seal, but left the parchment lying in his lap. He drank the water, ate the nuts and berries.

_Just open the parchment, Fen’Harel. Follow the rules. **Then** you can decide whether to change them._

His left hand tightened around it, creasing it in futile, mute rebellion. Then his right hand took control; unrolled it. Both hands held it steady on the table, while he tried to get his eyes to focus.

No need to imagine what his silent guide would tell him now; he could remember it. He could just _read_ it.

**_Orders for 8 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon_ **

_I wrote these orders on 4 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon. If anything has changed within the last four days then this is very probably your last chance to re-appraise the situation before the course is set._

_Assuming not, then yesterday (7 Justinian) you should have carried out the following tasks:_

  * _Read all reports, taken actions to preserve the quality of as many lives as possible;_
  * _Reinforced the Veil by any means possible; preserved the illusion of the Nightmare demon as the moon;_
  * _Visited the Winter Palace to check the status of the Anchor (expected state: severe);_
  * _Sabotaged the Qunari operations in the Crossroads, Elven Sanctuary and Deep Roads;_
  * _Brought Inquisitor Virlath Lavellan to the above sites to alert the Inquisition to the Qunari threat;_
  * _Left appropriate information for the Inquisitor about the history of each location;_
  * _Returned to Aratishan, re-invoked the split, then slept._



_If that’s all done, the tasks for today (8 Justinian) are:_

  * _Read all reports, take actions to preserve the quality of as many lives as possible;_
  * _Reinforce the Veil by any means possible; preserve the illusion of the Nightmare demon as the moon;_
  * _Visit the Winter Palace to check the status of the Anchor (expected state: critical);_
  * _Order the withdrawal of all double agents in the South, following completion of any final missions;_
  * _Sabotage the Qunari operation in the Vir Dirthara by awakening the Librarians;_
  * _Bring Inspector Virlath Lavellan and the Viddasala to the Vir Dirthara and Darvaarad;_
  * _Bring the above to the Sanctuary of the Dread Wolf, using eluvians to ensure safe passage;_
  * _Tell the Inquisitor that you are Fen’Harel, and answer as many of her questions as you can;_
  * _Remove the Anchor, thereby saving her life and giving the South the greatest chance for peace;_
  * _Leave her, and ensure she gets out of the Crossroads, and back to the Winter Palace, safely;_
  * _Return to Aratishan and sleep._



It seemed entirely wrong to take comfort from the neatness of his handwriting, before he burnt it.

But he did.

  
  



	4. Stopt by the sentinels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 8 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _missing, presumed deleted_

The half-hour passed more quickly than he expected, a sure sign that the Anchor was in peril, that he was disassociating from time. Two more reports to read: from his agents in the court in Denerim and the Qunari garrison at the port of Seheron. A shadow marred the papers on his lap. He frowned in annoyance, not bothering to look up: his spymaster did not usually approach this close until he indicated.

“My lord,” said the… _no, not the_ …

It was Abelas, and not… _what was his name? How can I not remember that? Did I never trouble to enquire?_

Slowly, he raised his eyes, and met the sentinel’s thoughtful gaze.

_Abelas. He’s called Abelas. Not the Sentinel. Cassandra’s not the Seeker; she’s Cassandra, faith incarnate._

What was it that she’d said, before he’d frightened her away that first time? _Is it really appropriate to think of people in terms of their role or duty or essence, when the truth is usually more complex?_

_I think of myself as Me. That’s all I’ve ever needed._

_You’re an admirable man. Not many people know who they are the way you do._

And while he’d held her in his arms, content to feel the fullness of the moment: Sophiyel fell _._

 _Wisdom_ had known the value of a name, something to hold on to while tides washed in and out and changed the self. _Pride_ thought it knew better. _Ir tel’him._ Ridiculous, to suddenly find oneself engulfed in hopeless waves of nostalgia, regret, grief: emotions he should have left behind in Arlathan, and couldn’t.

His companion couldn’t help him here, though he sought his face for compassion, and thought of Cole.

_I hope he finds another name._

Abelas coughed. “My lord, the sky was beautiful this morning. I have prepared a set of armour for you.”

He could not speak, and **would not** read Abelas’ mind, to know if he meant more than simple courtesy. Too proud – _of course_ – to ask, his eyes dropped to the final reports, scanning them to confirm that no surprises lurked therein. After a minute of dissembling and assembling counter-arguments, he shook his head.

“I do not need armour. I will change my robes.”

“My lord,” said Abelas for the third time. “We elvhen can take pride in little in this world. Let us be proud in you. It would give those who do not remember you some hope, to see you dressed as one of them. They would know that their millennia of service are acknowledged. They would see that they are kin to you.”

He stared into the distance, to the silent citadel, _our place of peace._

Images swam through his mind, as he calculated the probable effects on _her_. However much he tried to think of her as the Inquisitor: politician, commander, symbol… she was an impressionable young woman, and he ought not to take advantage. He remembered her as Orlesiène, dressed in blue and white and silver, corset tight around her waist, her painted lips – and shuddered. Armour might look like yet another mask.

Yet Abelas was right – it would improve morale among the elvhen. And might it not also underline both points to Virlath: that he was not the man he had presented himself to be, and yet that he had truly been that man as well? He’d indicated enough times that all external trappings – armour, bodies, bodices, cheekbones – were secondary to purpose and intent. _Is Varric defined by his chest hair and not his wit?_

_If Varric stopped being witty, would he still be Varric? What if he’d lost his memories, went mad?_

_What if he were Tranquil?_

Eventually, or immediately, he nodded. “I will wear the armour.”

 

_Perhaps all it ever is, is masks._

  * _Spoken… like… a… true… Orlesian._



_What else did you expect? So is the self the union or the intersection of the masks? The ocean or the boat that sails it?_

  * _You… know… what… Sophiyel… would… have… said. (“When is a mirror not a mirror?”)_



_“Why can’t it be both?” (“When it’s an eluvian.”)_

_It can. It must. But not at the same time, or the boat sinks and the ocean has no meaning._

_Was **that** why she died?_

****

That thought persisted through the clamping on of armour, layers of mail and plate and cloth and bone and fur, remembering Sophiyel on the verge of being real: taking on his grief, his love, then pushing him away.

_We loved her for so long; and now he’s gone as well._

_I want to see them all again. I want to feel it all, again._

_“Let me know if I can help.”_

_“You already have. All that remains now is **them**.”_

_“Solas…”_

_I didn’t kill them. Then._

_At least I won’t do it in anger this time. I burn because I must, not since I can._

****

At last Abelas finished assisting with his armour, and took him to see the other sentinels. He went around them, asking each his name, committing them to memory. They presented him with their copy of the _Vir Uthsulahn_ , which he took into the library, alone.

It was nearly time to start the day: fly through the Crossroads, to Halamshiral, to her; to waken the Librarians and get the sleeping agents out; to stop the war he could stop and to start the war he must.

The book lay, clasped, on the desk. He hardly dared open it, remembering what it held: the knowledge of the future and the past; the entire cycle of time from founding Arlathan to now, and round again; the wisdom of what _ought_ to be; and the important miscellanea – the histories of kings, the songs of ancient Arlathan and long-lost thaigs; the genesis and exodus and acts and revelations; illustrated prose and poetry and psalms.

With trembling hands – _I can take two minutes_ – he unclasped it, and it opened, as he’d inevitably, always, known it would, at the Song to Wisdom. _Behold, you are beautiful, my love, my peaceful mountain dove._

The ptarmigan would take him down the cliff and smash him. How could it not?

He closed the book, more firmly than he needed to, and breathed.

  
  



	5. In the crow's nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 8 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _missing, last sighting H2-37-019BF7A431E2_

Permitting himself to be dressed in gilded armour, even to the details of the wolf pelt they had thoughtfully provided, on Abelas’ recollections of his preferences no doubt: that had felt like stepping back in time.

Yet flying through the Crossroads still felt like going on to future, stretching out the world and time; no longer running from himself, or _her_ , but playing out the game to its conclusion: forwards.

He dropped the orders for Médée himself, to save time and ensure she found the note in Qunlat that would lead the Inquisition down the path he wanted. Another of his double agents – a viddathari working as a servant – would place a gaatlok barrel in sight of Médée, and they would fight, neither knowing who they worked for. The Inquisitor had seen enough gaatlok now to know it; but either way, she’d get the note.

_Not a bad execution of a plan, assuming chaos doesn’t interfere again._

Now he was circling, suspended, high over Halamshiral: one more raven wheeling in a summer morning sky, its blue occluded in the east by grey clouds spread across the sun, and scarred to the south by the green aurora of the sewn-up Breach. It pulsed there like a heartbeat: a temporary reprieve. _Alive, for now._

Up here he could observe the entire city, should he wish. From its burnt-out, deadened slums where elves eked out their livings, to its merchants’ villas built with captured marble; its gates and steps and trees and markets; its people, old and young and poor and rich… and threatened, all unknowing, by the Qun.

_And if not the Qun, then me._

None of that was visible from the Winter Palace, a short march from the city. Its vistas looked to hills and vineyards, windmills and mountains and winding roads, apparently untouched by civil war. He’d seen, in memories Felassan held, how Briala had sent Celene back here, not to Val Royeaux: an act that had prolonged the civil war, yet also meant its frontier had remained far from Halamshiral. And thus, the palace was still bright with blue and gold; the great bell at its height unsundered. Banners of Orlais fluttered near the statues of Andraste with her sword; and ornamental trees and flowers grew in pale ceramic pots.

He watched the people who knew more than most: Dorian, by a chessboard set Tevinter-style; Maryden, still singing by the tavern; Médée reading his orders; Leliana dressed as the Divine and reigning as…

  * _Good morning, Fen’Harel. A day of victory, indeed._



_Hardly._

  * _If you’re looking for the Inquisitor she is still in bed, about to wake. They made her take four hours’ sleep after she returned last night from the Deep Roads. They’re going to hold another council shortly._



_How do I know that?!_

Solas brought back in memory the reports he’d scanned at dawn. None had given him that information.

_I **don’t** know that. Perhaps the Anchor’s state is now so critical that I can sense such information from the Fade while still awake. Though thankfully the Veil appears to be intact. I can’t sense any rifts._

  * _She won’t survive another day with it. The game ends either way, today._



_It certainly does feel that way. We’re almost out of time._

****

He’d seen the play unfold: the players converging to the Council; the fight between his agents and the reporting as expected to the Orlesian and Ferelden leads, Duke Cyril and Arl Teagan; the angry marching to the Inquisition’s briefing room, undoubtedly to make demands that someone else would solve their problems. Neither had bothered to talk to the guard or servant for themselves, he noted.

And then… he’d seen Virlath Al’var Lavellan, Inquisitor and Herald of Andraste, walk into the sunshine, head held high, hiding a nervousness and fear he knew she must be feeling, her gloved left palm clenching as the pain ran through it. _Yes, critical; and I think she suspects that too._ Her uniform was dark blue azure, sombre, trimmed with tan and gold. Her burnished auburn hair was freshly washed and gleaming, brighter through his raven eyes, and… she was beautiful. A saviour and a leader and…

_She cannot be your love. Not now, not ever. Not unless she knows, and then she’ll never want you._

It was as if everything he’d planned to do and say to her had vanished from his mind. All at once he couldn’t face another minute _watching_. In vain he tried to tell himself – you must make sure she’ll follow, must check that she gets the note, must... _Check. Perpetual check? I can’t. I’ve got to win. Can’t draw._

He was already flying from his perch. South-west to the boarded-up abandoned chateau where another eluvian was stored, forgotten, and unguarded by the Inquisition. Over forests, hills and streams he glided, sufficiently a bird by now that tears would only form as caws, distress calls for his mate so close to death.  

_Perhaps I should be **glad** that soon I won’t feel all this pain. _

_No. You can’t afford to feel at all. You **must** tell her. You **must** save her. You **must** leave her. You can’t let your desires get in the way of love. She has to live. She must be free from you. She has to fight you._

With a final, long distress call as he left the world and his desires behind, Fen’Harel flew down through the shafts of sunlight streaming through the broken roof…

…and straight through the eluvian and back into the Crossroads.

 

Underneath the magic rainbow sky, the future beckoned.

 

****

It was midday, and he woke up the Librarians, their spirits broken by his prior actions, turned to fear. One was slow to wake; he left it with a veilfire rune scrawled on the ground, for her: _Behind you._

It was afternoon, and he returned to the citadel of peace within the Tirashan, received reports, and gave out orders, took a short siesta; left again as usual, before the Nightmare could push through the Veil.

It was evening, and he fled from one location to the next. A wolf, a raven, sometimes in his dragon form, occasionally elven: evading pursuit from demons and Qunari. Nobody was turned to stone by him.

It was midnight, and he flew into the old fortress the Qunari called the Darvaarad. With relief he saw that the illusion held, despite the demon’s waxing power: a huge, white moon that dwarfed the silent stars.

Their dragon – green and wretched – was in pain. He wondered how the Inquisitor bore hers, and if she’d release this victim too. He found the Viddasala and her people, arguing about the Inquisition. He opened the eluvian that he’d kept locked, on the bridge below the hart. An obvious trap, but still they’d follow.

On the other side, the dawn approached. Rare for him, to stay awake all through the night, but there’d be nothing _but_ collecting souls and dreams from now, an attention that would benefit the Fade at least.

Fen’Harel climbed up to the last eluvian, the greatest of them all: the one that Viddasala had deduced existed, but had never found. Hard and old and weary, but still proud, he sat down to meditate, as usual.

The Qunari would be coming soon, and after them, then _her_.

–             One… day… at... a… time. Just… breathe.

  
  



	6. An unseen hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 9 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, last sighting H2-37-019BF7A431E2_

As simple as a thought, to lock each passed eluvian behind her. All day and night he’d felt the people flowing, marching through the portals’ magic: her and Bull and Dorian and Cole; and Viddasala’s people. Now he’d whirl the waters round and bring her, safe, to him.

She’d come to the Qunari fortress an hour after midnight there, while he was here, circling above the great eluvian that led back to the sacred grove. The eluvian where Mythal had left the fragment of herself for Morrigan to find, before he’d taken all the power she’d stored up in Flemeth over the last six hundred years. No man could take that other fragment; no woman could pass through it without gaining it.

_She is the Mother, protective and fierce. More than that I will not say._

A detachment of Qunari had already been sent through the eluvian he’d opened to his ruined temple. At first he let the swarm advance, trying to draw them all away from _her_. Viddasala had come far enough to see the great mirror, and was instructing them to find a way that led to it, when the urgent message came for her to return to the Darvaarad. He’d felt reluctant admiration for how quickly the Qunari worked, bringing through their warriors, wagons, gaatlok, smashing any mirror that led somewhere they had been already.

_A waste, but I can make more, if I find I need to._

They’d never realised that it was not the eluvian itself that determined where it led, but _him_.

As soon as Viddasala left, he’d begun to toy with them, setting up the stage for _her_. Subtle shifts of magic to weaken wheels of wagons from their bindings, connecting the eluvians to make them run around in circles: simple tricks that served him well, millennia before.

_Geometry has always been my ally._

The other ravens kept their distance, recognising him as friend – he’d brought them fruit and seeds when he had travelled here before, and flown and even played along with them, for company – but also rival. Most were adolescent birds, yet to mate. Back then he’d wondered, idly, if Virlath had ever sought to be a shapeshifter, and if he’d ever bring her here to show these teens how beautiful she was, and kind, and…

_It will never happen, now._

Morrigan could take raven form – he’d seen that in the Temple of Mythal – but he didn’t want her as his mate. Nor would she him, undoubtedly, no matter how well-trained she’d been by Flemeth; and yet, if Abelas were any indication of the will of Mythal’s priests, the Well would make her beg for it.

_Eternal torment, only to be salved if you do everything she asks of you. And yet, she was the best of them._

A score of men poured through the penultimate eluvian. Timed right, he’d cut the numbers to a manageable force for Virlath and her allies. He swooped down to it, shifted back, then, bracing himself, walked through the horde, turning each to stone as it hoisted its weapon. _Threaten Fen’Harel, and you will die._

_Virlath sa’vunin, time it right. I only have the time to see her, save her once._

Taking wing, he flew back down to perch on rocks beside the first eluvian. Viddasala was approaching, attended by her massive Saarebas and a karataam of warriors. For her, it would be over soon as well. He looked along the bridge and saw the dragon sweeping up towards the “moon”, escaping from her captors.

Merely her, and nothing more.

For a moment the world stood still, and he imagined Virlath torn apart by dragon claws, crushed beneath exploded masonry or driven mad by poison. Or… was he too late, and had the Anchor taken her already?

His mind raced, as he reached into the Fade, to feel the tendrils of his magic, tug at them enough to feel the sweet resistance that showed she was still alive. And then he saw them running: all of them – Virlath, and Dorian, and Bull (oh, _good_ ), and Cole; and she was bending over, gasping, staring at the glowing mark. Immediately he cursed himself, and dropped the connection. _Your fear just makes it worse._

If he could get them through here it would take the Nightmare a while to find them. Out there, the illusion barely held, and he had nearly brought it down on her. He could hear little of what they were saying, but from the shocked look on Dorian’s face it was undoubtedly about him. He’d left enough of a trail that Viddasala would connect the role he’d played as Solas to an agent of the Dread Wolf, Fen’Harel; and she’d want to tell them that, seeking to corrode Virlath’s resolve.

Troops began to move through, stirring up the waters and the sand. Virlath just looked furious.

_Perhaps she can’t believe it, yet. This may be even harder than I’d thought. I must be strong for her._

The Fade flared suddenly and he could see the Nightmare’s tentacles reaching down and round and out for her, emerging as green sparks of light that drove her to her knees.

Enraged, and desperate, he pushed back through the Fade, through her, to drive it far away from her with brutal strength. But his blows felt no resistance: she had thrust it back herself. He could feel her struggling to her feet, and even hear her irritated whisper: _I am not your puppet, Fen’Harel._

Had he not lost his heart to her three years ago, he’d have succumbed right then.

 

Terrified that he would wreck his own plans now, through too bewitched and wretchedly weak a heart, he took to the skies just as Viddasala stepped into the shrine.

_What if I turned her – all the rest – to stone right now, and Virlath never saw that?_

It would be too easy to direct Virlath – and only her – to another mirror; send the others straight back to the Crossroads; tell her the Qunari tales were lies, that he’d been captured by the Viddasala.

But he didn’t have the power to control the Anchor for an hour – _a quarter of an hour at the most_ – and, when it was gone, she mustn’t see what he’d become. Besides…

  * _Doesn’t she deserve the truth?_



_Not all at once._

  * _You’ll tell her some time, then?_



_I won’t be **me** , will I?_

  * _You are always you._



_What fool said that?_

 

He let them all step through, and witnessed Virlath gazing round at sunlit trees, and waterfalls, and other ravens. A few steps on, this close to him, and in this place that held so many memories, the Anchor’s magic senselessly ripped through her, feeding off it all. The impact drove her to the ground, engulfed in pain.

_And **I** did that. It’s all my fault. My pride, my wars, my magic. Why couldn’t I have left it all alone? _

  * _The alternatives were worse. The shaper must first walk away if he is to return._



_I know._

And down below, he heard Cole saying: “Solas doesn’t want to hurt people. He isn’t that kind of wolf.”

The raven flew up higher, out of earshot.  


  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My understanding of how the eluvians work comes from _The Masked Empire_ and how Briala controls them there. If you haven't read it I can highly recommend it.


	7. I am sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 9 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, last sighting H2-37-019BF7A431E2_

Time ticked on. He willed it faster: fearing that the Anchor pain would be too much for her; and willed it slower: knowing it would all be over soon. Seconds drifted in and out of focus.

They were close now, close enough that it was hard to maintain composure in his raven form. He was glad that the Inquisitor had chosen companions he had travelled with and knew: Bull, with his insider knowledge of Qunari tactics; Dorian, far more astute in battle than most people gave him credit for; and Cole.

Cole, who could no longer slip into the Fade; who had found love with Maryden; who had turned human.

Cole, his friend Cole, who had told him he could find happiness in his own way, that he had not been wrong.

He was already planning that he would let Cole take her back to them, once he was done with what he had to do… assuming that she got to him.

As he watched, his fears that she would not make it as far as him began to lessen. She must have realised that the mirrors locked behind her as soon as all of them were through, for she was leading them straight through the massed Qunari – dodging, stunning, running – without attempting to subdue them all.

_She knows she has an ally who controls the eluvians. Did she deduce that it is me?_

It was futile to attempt to guess her thoughts: they’d have so little time that it was only right that he should let _her_ ask the Dread Wolf (Great Betrayer, Lord of Tricksters, absent lover) whatever she wanted.

Occasionally over the past two years, when their paths had crossed, he’d had the chance to see her…

  * _To spy on her, you mean._



…but she hadn’t even known that he was there. Maybe she thought that he was dead, or he didn’t care…

  * _I presume that you rehearsed the answers to a thousand questions she might ask over those two years._



_I rehearsed the answers to the questions anyone might ask over several thousand years. But…_

  * _But?_



_But this will be the first time that I’ve given anyone a proper chance to ask them._

  * _Spirits don’t count?_



_Not for this, they don’t. They can’t form independent views; they just reflect my own opinions._

  * _Or Cole: he doesn’t count?_



_His knowledge of the situation was mostly gained from peering into my own mind: inevitably biased._

  * _Well, you certainly have never let **me** ask them._



He tried to ignore the voice, and to make his mind blank so it couldn’t hear him. Surely it was just a memory: dead embers cradled in the pieces of the orb. How could it form any independent view from him?

Instead, he watched her, silently. From this vantage point, perched atop the great eluvian, he could see the Inquisitor tackling the Viddasala’s Saarebas, slashing at it with her spirit sword. Huge, four times her size, swollen with lyrium: a weapon, like the templar behemoths had been – driven mad by pain and rage.

They fought in a courtyard that had once been filled with herbs and flowers; music, laughter, merriment. The candles and the velvet banners still remained, preserved by loyal spirits but still faded over empty aeons: green and sparkling gold to muted browns, presiding over grass and mushrooms. Somehow that made it worse, to see the wolves and flames entire and banners faded, only stone and fire as the constants.

_Stone and fire, pride and desire, hard rock and rising sun; and only weeds where mighty trees should grow._

The Saarebas was drinking power straight from its connection, torn through mind and time, to the mutilated wellspring of the Deep Roads. _Saarath._ He’d once been called Ashkaari – _seeker, one who thinks,_ at least what in the Qun might pass for thinking, capable of leaving it behind, or changing it – yet now he was consumed by blood, the power of his mind become a weapon: drowned in song. _It. It. IT._

If the Qunari gain the South, that will be her fate too. _It. It. IT._

Suddenly he saw she’d have to kill it with the mark, that even Mythal’s powers granted to him might not be enough to cage this lightning beast now. As if to confirm his fears it screamed and – breaking through the tenuous hold that Viddasala still maintained as templar–Arvaarad – rose high into the sky.

****

He was watching her – and him – intently, flying high again, the magic clear in red and blue and green and violet. He’d got them where he wanted them: Viddasala stepping through the mirror that led to her frozen warriors, alone; Virlath and their friends not far behind. He’d give the Qunari priestess one more chance, and if she turned on him… well, then… at least she’d have full warning of the consequences.

So she stepped through, and Saarath landed – screaming, loud and loaded – right in front of Virlath. It cast a barrier right round the eluvian. Perhaps it had intended to protect its priestess, and hadn’t noticed that she’d gone already. Void spheres formed, rips in the Veil, with shades and demons pouring out, and nothing he could do to save his love, because, because… _he had to guard the great eluvian and Mythal’s soul._

And so, he tore his gaze away from Virlath, glided down to land atop the waterfall, and watched the Viddasala mourn her men. Stiff-necked and proud, unwilling to admit defeat? It would condemn her.

****

It had, and she had seen it, just as he had planned and willed.

And so, he walked away, as he had planned – remembering the statues he had seen, the rough-carved wolf who faced away from Dalish camps: the one who locked their gods away; survivor of the War and captor; keeper of the secrets of the Elvhen and destroyer of their...

“Solas.”

He stopped and looked over his shoulder, suddenly now visible to her, and conscious of the armour Abelas had made him wear, not light like fur and feather, but hard and gold and gleaming, handsome, _hers_.

The memory of meditation scarcely helped. She was real, alive and warm; and should not have to die! And as he forced his will to hold the mark in stasis, an endless agony unfolded, hidden: of seeing all his people die, who were and are and should have been immortal, just like her. _May the Dread Wolf take you._

A great desire formed in him, barely caged by will and flesh, to take her now to Abelas and make her elvhen. Only preparation helped him now to say, in heartfelt sorrow, quietly, the words he’d said so many times:

“That should give us more time. I suspect you have questions.”

“And now you know.”

“ _Ir abelas, vhenan._ ”

  



	8. That I could forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 9 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, last sighting H2-37-019BF7A431E2_

Questions had fallen softly from her lips, the same ones as he had predicted. Better, perhaps, than expected, for she had guessed – or, to be fair to her, _deduced_ – that he was Fen’Harel, and still had called him Solas.

_You lied to me. I loved you. Did you really think I wouldn’t have understood?_

He’d apologised, because that was the only thing to do. But he knew he had been right. It would not have been appropriate or kind for her to know back then, before Corypheus’ death, and, later, while his plans were still maturing, it would have been too risky to alert the Inquisition to them.

She’d want to stop him, and even if she didn’t, then she’d want to change his mind. And she’d be right, entirely and completely right, except… that he knew all the things she didn’t. The things he wouldn’t tell her, the things he didn’t even dare to think about or voice, in case someone was listening.

 

And then she’d asked about the future and he’d told her all the words he’d learnt by heart:

_I lay in dark and dreaming sleep while countless wars and ages passed. I woke still weak a year before I joined you. My people fell for what I did to strike the Evanuris down, but still some hope remains for restoration. I will save the elven people, even if it means **this** world must die._

 

He’d said it, thinking of his own annihilation, and, because she’d no idea of what he really meant, she’d offered her assistance:

“Let me help you, Solas.”

He had not dared to hope for this, but could not permit it. “I cannot do that to you, _vhenan_.”

She had stepped forward, pleading with his back, and he’d imagined every gesture just as clearly as he would have seen her had he faced her. “But you would do it to yourself? I cannot bear to think of you, alone.”

 

And now he was alone, and he walked the way of death, had felt the Anchor burning through his grasp: six hundred years of Mythal’s power not enough to save her errant sons from harm, or preserve her elven…

  * _…daughter…_



_Abelas meant Morrigan._

  * _He didn’t know that Flemeth was Mythal, or that Morrigan was her daughter. Why would he mean her?_



_Maybe he met Loranil. Or Sera told him._

  * _Unlikely, don’t you think? Remember what he said, not what you assumed he meant._



_…a new Mythal, her daughter. The one who walked at your side to the Vir’Abelasan._

  * _You see?_



_Walked, not flew. No, surely he meant Morrigan!_

  * _At least you kissed the one you want three times. We can still retrieve this, if you listen to me._



_I barely brushed my lips against hers! It was in the Veil, not pulled across it. Does that even count?_

The voice was silent, and he was left doubting once again where faith might lead him, and murmuring the words that he’d once preached, regurgitated by Dumat: “In silence lies the beating heart of wisdom.”

It hadn’t hit him yet, the grand finality of everything: her hand, her love, his souls, the world. He stood there, locked in shock and rigid; hands entwined behind his back; impassive; shaking, waiting for the split.

Letting Virlath go… and not letting him go back to her.

_Even if Abelas **did** mean her, and I still don’t think he did, it isn’t fair to her to let her help me._

 

Beyond the great eluvian, he’d let Cole through to help her, and they stumbled round the stone Qunari. Solas rolled the magic from the Anchor into an orb of violet gold and held it in his palm. It sparked with echoes of her thoughts – her pain, and also words that made his pain far worse: _ar lath ma, vhenan_. That almost made him run to her, that she still loved him, even though…

_I deserted her without a word. I destroyed the elvhen empire, took their immortality, broke their connection to the Veil, killed countless people. I refused to let her come with me, and I took her arm, and…_

  * _And she **still** loves you._



_Naïve of her to do so, and it would be selfish of me to accept that love._

  * _And yet, we did. It’s not all about you, you idiot._



No, it wasn’t – no, _of course_ it wasn’t – and he was going round in circles, and he hadn’t even said goodbye.

“I will never forget you,” was what he had said, before he’d turned and left her for the final time.

And now the split began to take control again, but this time, with the Anchor gone, he’d be swept out to sea, a frozen sea where nobody would ever hear him, with every tear an icicle and every sigh a mist. Auburn hair and violet eyes; intelligent and gentle, kind and wise; and loving him despite it all, and brave, and soon to…

He cast out, frantically, a final whisper deep into the ripples of the mirrors, a prayer for her:

“Live well, my love, while time…”

 

And stopped, holding the eluvian open for long enough to let her through, before it blackened, dead.

He felt his fur stand up on end, or what would have been his fur, had he been fully shifted to his wolf form.

Someone was behind him. Someone was approaching through the sacred grove, to where he stood between the wolf and dragon by the great eluvian. Nobody should be here. Nobody but him could enter!

He’d pushed Virlath and Cole into the Crossroads, to join The Iron Bull and Dorian, and watched them run back through into the Winter Palace, Virlath wrapped in Dorian’s cloak and guarded by the spirit she’d called Fen’sulevin, wolf of purpose. He held back a sigh. _She doesn’t know._

For the second time that morning, the Dread Wolf stood with ears pricked back to hear the steps of someone who approached, someone who called…

“Solas?”

  
  



	9. Where winter wolves bark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 9 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, last sighting H2-37-019BF7A431E2_

He knew the voice, and once more Abelas surprised him.

He turned, as he had turned before, to face Virlath, the other side of this eluvian. As he had seen Flemeth turn to him, before her death. Right here, where he now stood. _I knew you would come,_ she’d said.

_I was too weak…_

Mythal’s soul still glimmered in the crimson-locked eluvian, huge and vast as it was huge and vast, the flanking mirrors broken as her twins were broken, the wolf and dragon guarding it in mourning.

_The failure was mine…_

Gilded trees, exquisite in their form and function, stood sterile, bare and static in the mist, unmoving in the breeze blown in from nowhere, its needless chaos slamming into petals, ripping them as Abelas approached.

_I am so sorry._

The small square yellow tiles, on which he’d laid her body, temporary mortuary until she fell out of the world, betrayed as they had always, always been betrayed, the reason he had written that book in the…

“Solas?”

Kneeling on the floor and groaning, words that he was scarcely conscious of were spilling, dripping from his mouth and mind like blood and water weeping from his eyes; the Fade; dying, like the world; the woman that he’d loved had died, was going to die and it was all his fault, again; blood like maraas-lok and spirit spun with gossamer; and chicken soup and hearthcakes and to beg forgiveness if she heard him.

His own stern voice reminding him that duty must be done and this was all **ridiculous** …

_Ridiculous and irresponsible and selfish._

Conscious of Abelas’ hands upon his shoulders, he was in the Fade and out of it, and holding him in place.

“Solas? Can you hear me?”

Abelas should not have been here; nobody should ever see this, see this agony that sundered, mind from heart and twin from twin, left from right and right from left; faith from magic, knowledge from imagination…

 

The pain was scarcely more than he deserved. _This world is all my doing, so it **should** undo me._

 

Icicles, stalactites, stalagmites, shivering. Cave. _Need my fur to keep the cold outside me. It’s so dark._

The only light and warmth lay in his paw, distended from the violet orb, his memory of her arm. As if he held her hand: soft dainty flesh and pulsing Anchor all in one. He felt his own jaws close around his leg. The sharp teeth bit and brought the blood, bright agony of slicing, shaping, severing; binding bone to sundered Anchor.

He licked along the wound, to heal it; another leg was forming as he willed it. No eternal damage, just this burning bone and blood that he could separate and push into the orb, to speak with her once more.

_Oh, Virlath. Would that you were elvhen too, and that you could grow another arm as easily._

Against the plan, but he was done with planning. In Elvhenan this would have meant his exile once again.

_She loves me._

Thoughts were soft again, like rain or sleet. Outside the cave it poured down endlessly, images of falling, freshly wept, to rise again in sun’s evaporation making air, like she and I should rise: immortal, wise.

_Life needs death._

But, without the orb, he couldn’t make this Anchor last, this sundered Sun, his sundered self, his son, and so… it would all freeze. His hardening souls: a purity of purpose pushed to Pride, a deadened wise Desire.

_Spent too much time observing. Now all that I can do is die. And yet…_

And yet…

_She loves me._

 

Something lit again inside of him, a veilfire flame that he had doused but never quenched: a memory of hope. It was a dragon stricken from the record, a murdered final aspect of the sun, an eighth.

_Andraste’s wisdom guide me, for I do not trust the Maker._

 

He curled around the orb and hoped, and hoped.

 

_She knows that I am Fen’Harel. She knows what I did. She loves me still._

 

Outside the cave, the blizzard was a torrid sea of white. Inside it, walls were bare and smooth, and many times rubbed out. He focused, and heard breathing, and a steady heartbeat, Abelas’ occasional voice, and birdsong of Aratishan. Either he was walking or the sentinel – Abelas – had carried him back home.

He shuddered, and the blizzard screamed; the cave walls massed with images of skeletons and darkspawn. Every single one of them – human, elf and dwarf, and then Qunari – would be blighted if the fire went out.

_Your fear keeps them alive. How can you hope?_

 

_There was something more with her, something that is not just me within this world._

_It’s **not** all me. It’s not all my imagination. _

 

The shadows on the walls were real.

Her love for him not merely his own self-love, reflected through the trace of Time; not through the Anchor; not his desperation; not a shadow cast from loneliness and longing. _I am not your puppet, Fen’Harel._

And as he watched, the images reshaped themselves. In purple shadows from the orb, a meld of her desires and his, he saw the inklings of a path, a lightly sketched _el’seth’nu’las_ , the outline of a fresco new and bright.

And on this ninth sacred mountain, her voice still repeating, warm and hungry: _Solas, var lath vir suledin._

  
  



	10. I will do nothing but listen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 14 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, last sighting H2-37-019BF7A431E2_

Even with all his past experiences, it had taken several days for him to come to any kind of terms with the particular chilling torments of this situation.

 

The nights were endlessly familiar. Solas slept undreaming, while Fen’Harel took patrol around the scattered walls of the Black City: reassuring dreamers; easing fears; and guiding broken souls to their damnation. Any he could save and urge away from there, he did. The Nightmare demon taunted him continually, occasionally hunting him for sport, though even it had long since learned that he was faster and that any chase was futile.  

Its fearlings took the form of walking corpses, revenants and horrors – people he had known from distant and from recent past – and all his powers of imagination could not make them live or change.

He took the Dread Wolf form, six-eyed, huge, ferocious, in order to destroy the visions quickly: sharp jaws biting through each muscled chest, scarred and ghastly pale; claws like daggers ripping through the arcane horrors’ robes; and blinking back the six-fold sight of Cullen, Virlath, Cole, Andraste, Ghilan’nain, Felassan.

_They are not real. They are a tool._

The Nightmare’s dark amusement echoed through his mind, certain of its long-awaited victory.

“They were people. You destroyed them when you raised the Veil, and you will destroy them yet again.”

_I did what I had to do,_ thought Fen’Harel, not wasting breath on saying it out loud. _Still hope for restoration._

“Without the orb your defeat is inevitable. Not even your silly little girl was afraid of you, old wolf. Perhaps I will choose to possess her when your magic no longer protects her. All would learn to fear my Inquisitor.”

_Then you will die with her when all the world dies, and you’ll have to start again,_ would be the response. He tore apart another demon, ignoring its resemblance to the woman whose left arm he’d mutilated. _A tool._

The way was clear to help a dreaming human boy, his mother snatched by slavers: starving, hungry, terrified. He made himself a calm old man and conjured up a dream of bread, and gave him purpose. _Free the slaves._

“When the chaos comes there will be nobody to do this,” screamed the demon, as he fought through to the next poor soul locked here by terror. “Even now, you cannot reach them all. Every fear you fail to soothe will bring eternal Blight down faster on this world. Shouldn’t you have helped that woman, not that boy?”

And so the nights passed: similar, familiar, dreadful, vital; his only consolation (hidden deep) that the demon had not yet perceived that he was only half himself. _Dying alone_ still hid a multitude of meanings.

 

Day brought far worse torment, for it held the chaos that might truly damn him. He rested in the snowy cave to lick his wounds. No need to hunt to eat; the food his waking counterpart consumed would serve for both.  

That helped, and so did the habitual grace and stillness of his body; rituals of meditation. Every time that the man (within whose (his own, his chosen) body he was trapped) moved, it was as if the cave itself moved. Tipping, swaying, shifting, shuddering, and Fen’Harel was sliding, clawing at the ice to maintain balance.

Vision was confined to inference from other senses, projected on to cave walls as if seen through an eluvian. His sense of taste was strong and hearing sharp, and auras tangled into scents.

Physical perception was disturbing, weighted by desire, the element that fuelled him, split apart from pride that sustained the prince who ruled Aratishan, to be the saviour of the People. He was paws and tongue and cock, aroused by scents. Even had he not felt the need of fur to keep the cold out – to fight against despair and loneliness and grief – he might still have chosen wolf form, rationalising all his lust to _mating season_.

The scent of her still lingered on his gauntlets where he’d touched her hair, and every time that Solas went to put them on, a dark heat swept through Fen’Harel, picturing his soft white mate, luscious and submissive, lying there and waiting for him, conqueror of all, to come and mount her.

_She is **mine** and I **will** have her._

Except… he wouldn’t, either of him, because Virlath would stay in Skyhold, or at least the South: Orlais, Ferelden, Kirkwall or the Marches. Orders kept him in the North, and in the Tirashan. And so her scent would gradually fade, and this would all get… so much easier.

 

Solas had finished his meditations. Those thoughts were closed to him, beyond the split, but Fen’Harel could tell because the cave swayed gently as he rose, sounds of bare feet walking to the dressing chamber, opening the door and… _ah… there, it is, her scent again_ …

His overheated mind etched lust upon the walls in charcoal, as far in style from his considered fresco at her citadel as dragon blood from apple juice: passionate, obscene and real.

He wished that he had never seen her perfect breasts and skin nor licked nor kissed her soft warm lips, nor surrendered to unspoken pleading to touch and hold and pleasure her within the Fade. Fen’Harel thanked his pride again that he had never lain with her in truth, and pulled his tongue from where it lolled, to come back in between his teeth. He wondered what Solas made of all the heat that surged within his body: he’d taken all the meaning from his memories of her, and so, while he’d remember her, he wouldn’t _understand_.

Unable to resist it any longer, Fen’Harel shifted back to elven form and took once more the violet orb of magic that had been her arm. He moulded it to make her hand again, so small and delicate, and folded her warm fingers round his rigid cock, sliding his breeches down just far enough again, and held his own around it, _teaching_ her, and fucked within it up and down until he spilled into her hand within his, gasping at the memory of violet eyes and her sudden smile so shy and trusting that it made him think to swear on Mythal’s well that _this_ would be the last time. She deserved far better – even her _hand_ deserved far better than him.

And yet, he didn’t swear, because he needed to survive. Without him nobody would soothe the nightmares.

And if he abjured desire, and faded into perfect sleep, then any hope of stopping Blight would die with him.

And if, in order to survive, he needed to remember what it felt like to be real, he would fuck the memory of her fingers twenty – _thirty_ – times a day, and build a she-wolf out of snow and ice, with long deep violet cunt pressed hard into the orb, then set into the ice, or some kind of shapely arse, to fuck that too, and…

_I have no pride._

 

Solas was now putting on the armour, his gauntlets far too close to his face as he adjusted (Fen’Harel presumed) his wolf pelt flaunted crosswise. His mate’s scent filled the cave with sweet, sweet musk.

Frantically, Fen’Harel built the she-wolf, scarcely managing to change his own form back to match before he rutted hard and fast into it, biting at her snowy ears and nipping at her fur. He couldn’t make her real, but he could make her just enough to be a solace in his loneliness. _…vir suledin._ / _I wish you could, vhenan._

And here, there were no demons who would hear him when he howled; and nobody to offer comfort when he wept into the snow; and nobody to listen to the silent sound of Solas reading through the day’s reports.

  



	11. Fancied indifference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 14 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, last sighting H2-37-019BF7A431E2_

Sweat-licked, Fen’Harel ran around the darkened cave, circling the orb: radiating warmth and energy where there was none; imagining a conjured hare – his tail – to chase upon the violet-tinted snow.

The other him was still reading reports. There must have been many with some news of import in them.

He tried not to wonder what they all contained.

He thought to curse himself for not including in his orders that his spymaster should read all reports aloud. But… how could he have trusted anyone, least of all a spymaster whose name he didn’t even _know_?

The Dread Wolf pounced upon the hare, licking at imaginary blood, pretending that it meant something, and almost missed the sound of footsteps on the grass. Panting, he lay down, ears pricked, and listened.

 

“My lord,” said Abelas. “Another report has just arrived. Lady Lavellan has returned to Tarasyl’an Te’las. The Inquisition is disbanded, but she has retained the castle.”

“Thank you, Abelas,” replied his voice in monotone.

 

Silence fell again for many minutes, only interrupted by rustling of leaves and sleeves and parchments. Abelas still waited, and Fen’Harel endeavoured to stifle hope that he would speak once more. In these first days, there had been precious few exchanges: no intrigue; not much conversation; hardly any _data_. He resolved, that if he ever found himself back in control of his own body, he would not be so damn _silent._

For the first time ever, he wondered whether Virlath _liked_ his silences. She hadn’t been – she _wasn’t_ – very extrovert herself, preferring quiet tête-à-têtes to noisy parties, and asking questions of him over telling stories of her own experiences. He should have asked her more about herself, but that could only have led to further expectations that he would share more. _Too dangerous._

Better that she thought that he was introvert, too proud, too private, prudish.

_Self-obsessed._

The bitter self-accusation stung anew, and not only because it was plainly true: he’d said as much to her before, after she’d come back from Crestwood. _It was irresponsible and selfish of me._

_And now I truly wear a mask I never can take off. Polite proud princeling pushing papers, pawns and people._

_The ever-changing wolf still lies within._

 

“I need to take Erasthenes to Erimond’s estate, near to Vyrantium, where Mistress Calpernia resides.”

_Well, **that** wasn’t in the orders._

Not directly, anyway; but he’d left enough vague, hopeful sentences about preserving life that he would have to trust that something in those new, unseen, reports had triggered this. It wasn’t as if Abelas would ever question it; demand to hear his reasoning. Fen’Harel felt anew that terrible torture of command in Elvhenan, when no-one had been capable of questioning even the most reckless orders, let alone those forged by his self in logic free from emotional impurities. How different if it were Cassandra who stood there… she would have stabbed the parchments and demanded truth, while Virlath hid a smile and let her.

_I miss Varric, even._

Hard penance to admit this now, when it was far too late, when they would all be gone so soon; were gone: how much he had enjoyed the camaraderie, those moments he’d forgot himself and just been… Solas.

As if the fate of all the world had never rested on his shoulders; as if, like now, there was nothing he must do, no vital charge, no secret mission, no instructions, no compulsions, no requirements. The hedge mage, the apostate, the nobody who walked the Fade; the strange elf who had painted that round room and left.

The one who made the Herald of Andraste smile and the Inquisitor look sad.

_She loved me then, she loves me now._

He cast a rueful glance back at the orb. It seemed that it had taken all it could for now – pulsing, dripping, bleeding, throbbing – and would have to radiate its own heat back to Thedas, like a lover drowsing on a bed: sated, spent and sore.

But what could he expect? After all, it was a single hand (and anchor manufactured by Tevinter from an orb they barely understood) and she and they had not been trained as he had, in the temples of Mythal.

_Had we time, I could have trained her._

The thought forced him to action, dropping the imagined temperature to cool the ardour that would madden him. He knew all the safest ways to slow desire’s infectious heat. Let Xebenkeck or Imshael feed on choices of their desperate victims and leave them burning in their wake. Fen’Harel would let the solitude disperse his feelings; and slowly freeze and isolate himself: _a spirit of desire, and not a demon._

What was it he’d said to Virlath? Standing by the memory of her fireplace and waiting for the next sweet kiss turned bitter: _Desire is made cruel when it only sees itself, and not the wider world, the wider duties._

And so: not complete isolation, but this constricted, restricted access to the world, so that he remembered why he could not cross the Veil again. So simple to possess someone, _just take them take her take her…_

But beneath the snow of memories – yes, below those fragile, fractal tendrils melting – lay the Void.

_Only in dreams do we hear whispered the names of Geldauran and Daern'thal and Anaris…_

_The ones who failed._

****

Fen’Harel had listened, more or less impatiently, as he had gone with Abelas himself, with minimal discussion, to fetch Erasthenes from where he’d been discovered. Some old ruin in Tevinter, from the scents and sounds: presumably one of his agents had uncovered him. The name was entirely familiar – he’d kept his eyes on all the Venatori since he had first enabled them to collect his orb, and Calpernia’s tale was unusual enough that he had traced her history back to when she had been slave to this Magister Erasthenes.

Liking what he saw – at least enough to prefer her to the other Venatori leaders – he had continued to make occasional interventions in her favour. She sought to persuade the Venatori that their focus now should be Tevinter, rather than the South – and she had been the best of them to throw his (unseen) weight behind.

Now, focusing on something else – to channel his desire and purpose, yes – something such as what he could deduce about Erasthenes from the little information trickling from the world. It felt, though muffled through the Veil, that the man was locked in a containment spell – a strong one, forcing truth, presumably leashed round him by Corypheus; a test, perhaps, for when Calpernia was set to be the Vessel of the Vir’Abelasan.

So who was being set this test now? Erasthenes himself, Calpernia, or someone else, and did he care?

  
  



	12. Handcuff'd to him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 14 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, last sighting H2-37-019BF7A431E2_

“Heart that is broken, beats still unceasing…”

Erasthenes’ voice expanded in Fen’Harel’s senses as Solas approached him, unspeaking and alone. He had asked Abelas to wait outside with the guard of elvhen accompanying them.

“…an ocean of sorrow does nobody drown. Chapter 1, verse 7.”

The inner wolf devoured the new impressions, his imagination populating cave walls with the scene. His outer footsteps stopped in front of the imprisoning spell that held, presumably, the scholar.

Solas spoke at last. “Magister Erasthenes of Minrathous, I greet you. This prison you were placed in by Corypheus does not permit you to eat, drink, sleep, dream or withhold the truth. Is this correct?”

“Yes… yes, you are correct.”

“Then hear this: Corypheus is dead, and Calpernia yet lives, unbound. You have been held in this prison for three years, cut off from the world. Has anyone else been here since Corypheus first chained you?”

“No. Three years…? I do not know if it should seem shorter, or longer. This prison has broken me.”

“Tell me what you know of me, Erasthenes.”

“I do not… ungh… aaargh...”

Fen’Harel flinched as the spell lashed at Erasthenes, the cave walls sparking gold in brutal sympathy, and flinched again in anticipation of the bound man’s answers. Solas merely waited for them.

“…you are… my lord, I do not understand… ungh… there is something in you liken unto me, unto this prison.”

“Go on.”

“I have seen those made tranquil, and yet you do not carry yourself like them. There is a pride within you, as if you… you are making yourself tranquil, continually. If such a thing were even possible.”

 _It is possible,_ thought Fen’Harel, in the lengthy pause that followed, _and not only through the vigil practised by the Seekers. My mind, my memories are lyrium and veilfire: sensations and emotions; earth and sun. The sun now hides below the earth… and denies the moon, eclipsed, its light. A bloody, terrifying, red-eyed wolf._

The snarling Dread Wolf, taken to the Darvaarad in mural form, began to roam around the walls in simple profile. His namesake forced his mind back to Virlath, and snow, and purpose.

_It is alive because what it is connected to is alive._

 

Eventually, Solas answered. “It is possible, although you do not need to know how. I suspected as much. Can you sense anything of the emotions that I am suppressing?”

“What emotions?”

“There are absences in my memory which suggest that I have been in love, quite recently, but I have no inclination to remember it. Can you sense that?”

Fen’Harel felt the nearby spell intensify in pressure as Solas took a further step towards it. The green aurora of the Fade pulsed indigo and azure; rose and bronze; lightning piercing even though his cave (his cage).

Erasthenes let out a high-pitched moan. “A demon! A demon there, inside of you!”

The cave repaired itself with images: of all the times he’d never harmed Virlath, nor held her without feeling love and wanting to protect her. _It is Pride that’s cruel, not me! I am not mad! This all has purpose!_

_I have purpose. I must live._

 

“I doubt it is a demon,” responded Solas, from that faraway reality. “Suppressed desire, unnecessary in the wider scheme of things, and thus discarded.”

_How clever of you, Pride._

The man who kissed Virlath upon the Skyhold balcony (cave walls) grew huge and black, as she shrank back, and stood upon its hind legs pulsing veilfire from its claws. Its many eyes were cold, and dead as moon dust.

For a moment faith hung in the balance, and wisdom almost lost its footing.

The sky turned black and Void.

 

Then tiny Virlath pointed at Helisma in the courtyard (who was she again? Ah yes…) and Fen’Harel remembered that what he’d heard was not a threat, disparaging… but only what he himself created, deliberately and purposefully: a shell of flesh to hide the souls in, one to cleanse another, if it could.

_And so he would._

 

The shell continued speaking. “I see. I contain myself in order to protect the world, that darkness cannot consume the Light; that dreams shall yet endure and not be swallowed up in Nightmare.”

“This is a waking nightmare,” moaned Erasthenes. “Breach the wards and set me free!”

But Solas refused. “No. You must decide this burden was your choice, that keeping Calpernia enslaved inevitably led to this. You must become the man compelled to speak truth, accept it as your purpose.”

Fen’Harel felt sick. Perhaps in some cold calculation that was right, was just, but surely it was… not?

“That is… a hard burden,” said Erasthenes. “Would you make of me… ungh… another Zinovia?”

“No. I would not have you set in public, at the mercy of fools, nor can you prophesy. I will transport you to your new mistress, Calpernia. Then she will see what fate Corypheus’ actions would have doomed her to.”

“No! I cannot… ungh… I will not… aaargh!... I must accept this.”

 

Fen’Harel stretched out his claws, frustrated, imagining Virlath, if she were here, pleading for mercy. She had even wept for Erimond, for killing him. For a Tevinter who’d have killed her or enslaved her without thinking.

“It will not be forever. I will send a mage to you,” continued Solas. “Do you see this orb of magic?”

“Yes… yes, it is connected to the woman you desire… desired. There are... ungh… traces of her magic in it.”

“Good. Then she must be a mage. I will bring her to Calpernia’s estate and ensure that none but she can open up the wards to where you will be held. Thus she will render judgement on you.”

Fen’Harel buried his face upon his paws. He’d forgotten just how good he was at strategy; he should have taken **all** his memories from the last three years. And yet… then… Solas wouldn’t think of them as _people_.

_Oh… ‘ma vhenan, what have I done? And worse: what will they do to you?_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For ease of reference, these chapters dated 14 Justinian, 9:44 Dragon lie between [Chapter 43](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/14139625) and [Chapter 44](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/14288137) of _Not that kind of wolf_. 
> 
> The wolf is not that kind to himself either.


	13. Fever of doubtful news

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 4 Solace, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, potential recent sighting H4-01-AE290BB831E2_

The world had turned upon its head again, and nights were true reality once more for Fen’Harel.

Twenty nights had passed after the day that she’d been ripped from him – the orb that spanned the Veil stretched to a dead hand splayed across a cellar door, permanently stained in ash on the day cave walls.

He’d thrust thoughts at the orb before he lost the last of reason, his connection to the _mind_ of Solas, and not just his body. Memories of Calpernia insurgent: her history; Corypheus; the Venatori; what she’d done at Wycome against Virlath’s clan – fearing – _knowing –_ that his elven half would bring his true heart to this land of slaves – that she might be, if not forewarned, then _warned_ at least, by him.

But words were gone now, lost in blizzard whirling chaos. Days were blurred impressions, now, grey against the grey-white sleet, whipped an icy wind wolf howled in solitary silence, soft.

Nothing to see but darkness, and that dead hand he’d burnt into ash.

Nothing to smell but long-gone wine and twenty-days-gone elvhen, and ancient wooden beams, and Calpernia, three times, in scented oil, each time defeated by the wards. _You are not my love._

Nothing to hear but sounds of empty cellar, muffled chanting chained man missing.

Somewhere out there was his other half, alive because the cave still swayed with walking, and alive because _he_ was alive, and he was alive because he still remembered her…

…and she was alive, and learning how to function with just one hand left? (Right.)

Or was she just a daydream?

The pain within the dead hand screamed, and would not let him let her go. And so, he doubted unreality.

****

The nights were real, by far too real, with taunts and screams, and blood and fighting, scratching, biting. Fewer Cullens now, and fewer Varrics; the Nightmare had returned to fallen Arlathan and flung at him the faceless many, all that he had murdered, had to murder, everyone who _died_.

Fen’Harel invented death, and, without the Blight, he knew, he could have learned to see that it was _good_.

Still better than eternal torture. Still better than continuous corruption. Still better that a man’s self changes; a woman learns; a child grows old.

The Nightmare gave him fewer Coles, but each night he remembered, as his thoughts and reason were returned to him, what the human boy had said: _You didn’t do it to be right. You did it to save them._

It wasn’t pride. It _wasn’t_ pride. It wasn’t, wasn’t, wasn’t.

What it _was_ , he didn’t want to think about right now. Not when people sobbed for help from nightmares.

_The people need me._

****

And back to day, and nothing to hear but sounds of empty rotunda, muffled chanting claimed man missing.

Nothing to hear but crockery.

_Crockery?_

A forest of jugs and platters, ewers, urns and tankards grew around him, in his mind, brand new. Many Dalish, some from Skyhold, some that he had held himself, and others he had seen by campfire light.

Tiny leaf-like saucers tumbled to the ground, but froze, bizarrely, just before they smashed.

_Crockery?_

And surely this was a false dawn, because he heard her voice, from somewhere in the pottery explosion, at its heart, and…

…he was dreaming, frozen terror. Had the Nightmare caught him at long last? How had he not seen it?

“…Solas?”

And he could not flee, but stood there, ready to, all muscles tensed, a wolf, ears turned as always to her voice. Her beautiful, melodic, lilting voice.

“Is this your dream, or mine?”

She sounded happy, overjoyed to see him, and happiness was not the Nightmare’s style, not even to deceive him as a feint. But how then was this possible?

A desire demon, somehow nearby in the Fade. It must be. He mustn’t touch her… _it_ , he mustn’t interfere, he mustn’t… he wrenched himself away, its anguished voice (not hers) fading into distances he could control.

“Please, vhenan, stop it. Stop!”

He pushed it all away, repeating: _I deserve to be alone, in solitude, forever. No friends. No demons._

 

And every single saucer smashed as Solas woke, wrenching him back into his own private Fade, and he was in the blizzard once again, and wondering who was mad: her, him, or someone else.

The cave walls spun with images from memory, her hand assembling itself back in time, attaching to her arm, and he could see her, kneeling, as he brushed his lips against hers.

_Reckless, reckless, reckless._

  * _At least you kissed the one you want three times. We can still retrieve this, if you listen to me._



Now _that_ was certainly a memory, this second time.

But there was doubt, and doubt, and doubt, and he had known that she was real, but might she still be?

He couldn’t think it through, not here, perhaps this was like how those without magic might experience the Fade, all shifting, snowing… with that golden spark off to the side, a goal to aim for, narrative, a focus.

_A golden spark?_

He turned his head to see it better, but the golden spark had fled. Yet hope… incredibly… remained.

 

That night, he tried to think it through, while fighting through the demons, and came to only one conclusion. The only ways that he could have been reached, at dawn, while passing from the Nightmare’s Lair back to the cave the dregs of the magic from the Anchor barely still sustained, was either via the Nightmare or the Anchor. And since there was no sense of terror – and he _would_ have known, he told himself – it must mean that she was still connected to the Anchor, and that he had heard her by that means.

He blocked out all the Nightmare’s taunting of his failures, and fell to thinking once again.

_Why... **crockery**?_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is linked to [Chapter 45](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/14406076) of _Not that kind of wolf_ , and Virla, in Nevarra, is now slightly closer to the Erimond estate (where Erasthenes was taken to) than she is to Skyhold (to which Caritas is bound). I imagine that she crossed the midway point the previous day.


	14. Aroma finer than prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 12 Solace, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, recent sighting H4-01-AE297990D011_

Eight nights later, he was still fighting demons, and dreading the deadness of the days, the sleet and sliding blizzard that would fall upon him as dawn fell upon Aratishan and Solas woke.

He was assuming that Solas still slept in Aratishan, of course, since that was what the orders had required of him. But increasingly the Nightmare taunted him with all the things he didn’t know, the chaos that would nibble at his plans like moths on silken banners, or shatter them like saucers in the whirling winter winds.

Crockery must be code for something: a literary word she’d never use in general. But who could she be talking to, to halt the Fade in time? A tiny, almost imperceptible pause. She’d sounded confident, not scared.

The demon’s sardonic laugh echoed around the blackened towers: “Your friend will never be happy again, with you or without you. You leave only loneliness and despair in your wake, not comfort.”

It was all in his own mind, of course. The Nightmare merely dipped into his fears and gave them voice.

He wondered, in between the passages of warfare, and as he raced to find the next lost dreaming soul, why the Inquisitor had never asked him about the Nightmare and her memories – the ones it stole connected with the orb. Perhaps she’d first assumed it did it at Corypheus’ command, but he valued her intelligence too highly to think she would be content with that explanation and not seek for a reason.

What would she have known? That she had woken in the cell, bereft of those memories; that he’d kept her alive; that he had not made up his mind to stay until much later. Had she ever connected _him_ with the Nightmare? He’d only told her of his connection to Corypheus a month ago, and though she had appeared appropriately surprised, her aura hadn’t shown the shock he had expected.

She’d figured him out before he’d had to tell her he was Fen’Harel. Admittedly, he’d left a lot of clues. But even so, again, she’d not seemed shocked.

Three years ago… “What did you do?” she’d asked, the first conscious words she’d ever said to him.

They’d come after he’d grabbed her hand, to thrust it at the rift. Later, he had told her that had been the point when everything had changed. But at the time, he’d said: “ _I_ did nothing. The credit is yours.”

He’d been pushing himself into the background ever since: the quiet elven mage, no frills, no indiscretions.

Except for her, of course.

And yet… she _was_ discreet. If she had known that he was Fen’Harel, then she had not told Bull or Dorian, had hid it from the Viddasala right up to the end. Wise, and loving, and… _what **have** I led her into?_

He killed a group of fearlings multiply shaped to look like her in agonising pain, and turned to face the day.

****

Their scents came first, arousing him immediately from cold and drowsing heaviness: Calpernia in jasmine oil; and behind her, Virlath. His relief that she was _here_ – and not, say, dead in some cold ocean or deep mine (her soul not yet released to come to him) – was tempered by the scents she bore.

Sweat, uncertainty and fear; and rusted iron, damp clothes, unwashed hair. _A slave._ Forty-two teeth bit savagely into his leg in fruitless self-recrimination. He’d forced himself to come to terms with that – _the likeliest of outcomes_ – and listen. Calpernia’s keys jangled in the lock, and then the sound of footsteps, two pairs, hers and _hers_ , and Calpernia collecting something from a shelf – a brazier, perhaps, and parchment.

“Light it, Vitalia,” commanded Calpernia, the echoes of her voice around the cave muffled by the snow.

_Vitalia. Tevinter meaning life. So…_

“You knew I was a mage, my lady?”

_She **sounds** surprised, but it does not show up in her scent. Though she’s afraid… of being caught? Thus she plays a part, like I did. Pushing herself into the background. She **was** the spy they trained up for the..._

The thoughts came quick and fast to him, with _data_ available at last. He smelled excitement – Calpernia’s and Virlath’s – and… and… someone else’s?

 _Oh, yes. My own._  

Calpernia’s voice broke into his thoughts, more sounds that spurred an avalanche of data. “Solitarios said that he was sending me a mage, when he sent me the scroll to describe what we will see in here. He also – while I was away last month – placed the man that we will find in here. He was my old master Erasthenes, a magister of Minrathous. He was bound by a containment spell, strong enough to hold a dozen pride demons. _Iron, to cage lightning._ If he tells a lie, he suffers immense physical pain.”

  * _Aneth ara, ‘ma falon._



_Containment. Yes. That’s why I hear your voice. Certain words must trigger all those memories of binding._

  * _Hakkon Wintersbreath bound Korth’s heart in iron and ice._



_That’s what the Avvar say, at least._

  * _That’s what Virla’s thinking as she lights the veilfire. Also, she is wondering where the trap is._



_Virlath? No… I don’t want to intrude upon her. Anyway, you’re just a memory. Those are **not** her thoughts._

  * _I’m sure that you’d consider that the **good** side of your pride, not intruding. Also, not believing… Me._



 

Calpernia’s scent disclosed her irritation. A faint image lit his cave: her brandishing the veilfire at Virlath. “Did Solitarios not brief you properly? These seals are tied to you. I cannot open them.”

“At once, my lady,” said Virlath. “May I have the brazier?”

 

_And what if I **did** believe you? _

  * _Well, then, we’d be talking. Also, you’d be helping Virlath. Help her lift the hand she doesn’t have._



Once more obedient, he reached out with his mind and focused on a single image. The elven archer pointing at four trees, that lay below the Grove of Ghilan’nain, unexcavated; by the huge stone hand they’d named the place for. _The Dead Hand._ He recalled the multitude of names it held across the ages. It had always been their shrine, the Twins’ shrine. One twin living, one twin dead, or both alive… they’d kept the secret well.

  * _Ah, nice. I couldn’t have done it on my own._



_Evade the wolves, and bring the worlds to life… that’s what you wanted. Once, I would have…_

Fen’Harel – or Dirthamen, or Falon’Din – broke off. The memories had been so tangled, that he suspected he’d been both and neither. No book in the Vir Dirthara held that knowledge, now, just hints of long-forgotten wars, of duels between component parts of Sun. Reality had been imagination, and they’d…

His thoughts cut, and the whole Fade moved, as Virlath lifted up her hand, the one he’d taken. It felt like Elvhenan, like Arlathan, believing, and he felt and saw her there, empowered, violet, embraced by light…

…the undulating waves of fear around Calpernia…

…their other friend, his old dead agent, hiding…

…the images he’d left for her of history, Calpernia and Wycome…

She saw him as Silentir, Dumat, carrying a horn and wand; a dragon. He pushed back, shocked, became a wolf again, and sank into the snow, in camouflage. He looked around the cave, and noticed all the changes. This was her Fade, not his own… and yet, he’d been the dragon.

_Hmm. This could be interesting._

  
 


	15. Cedar and branches of lilac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 12 Solace, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, recent sighting H4-01-AE297990D011_

He had entirely forgotten what it felt like, to believe and trust in someone else. Those parts of him were gone forever, _blighted_ , so he’d thought: the fire frozen; earth dissolved in acid, dark regret.

But now, in the silence of the cave turned library, listening to her writing and her anger, he felt able to remember trust, and wonder: _might I let myself… trust **her** , at last?_

****

Once, the light was pure. The spirits of the Fade were uncorrupted: perfect, whole, unchanging, simple.

They’d reached from the Sun, each ray a spirit, and encountered stone. The memory of that encounter still persisted, in his mind if nowhere else. Far before Arlathan, before he ever learned to fear the endless loop of time – that dread garrotte, the wheel they’d stretched the world out on – far before there ever was a _city_ in the Fade, around whose walls he tore through demons… far before all that, it had been beautiful.

And he had been so _proud_ of it, of what they’d done.

He remembered it, of course, the sanctity of light that burned within them all, connecting and infusing them. And as their civilisation grew, from clan and tribe to village, town and city, spreading out and manifesting inside, outside of the Fade, that veilfire light burned ever brighter.

Wisdom, knowledge, learning – all they knew was there to draw from, ideas flaming fast from clan to clan.

_I observed it all, and was a part of it._

Some attuned themselves to air, and time, and magic, and retained a quick connection to the Fade. Others hid beneath the surface: permeating rocks and ash and chasms; cultivating lyrium and lava. The People lived beside the seas or deep within the forests; and all the world was bathed in veilfire light.

He remembered the day that trees were born, and fire, streams, and moths; and bears and wolves; eluvians and gilded trees and parchment; fan vaulting for the sanctuary roofs; oil-based paint; and metalworking.

He remembered, when the Light was at its brightest – blinding, burning, high above the Stone – watching all the elvhen, their every thought laid open to him. The Vir Dirthara had made itself for them, to catalogue those thoughts. It was, perhaps, the first attempt to impose order on the Fade, with different sections organised by time: what had happened, what was happening, what might happen.

He’d found himself one day, so he remembered, browsing in the shelf of never-happened, wondering why. Some of it, so the People thought, was simple mathematics. The argument ran thus: five was never two plus two, because if five was four then one was zero and a world where _that_ was true would vanish in a puff of logic as soon as it were created. That world one day became no world the… well, there wasn’t even a next day, so they said, since time evaporated too. Which meant it all remained a thought, and not a happening.

Another ragged breath escaped him, forming mist he couldn’t see for darkness. The problem was, if you believed in such a contradiction – such as two plus two makes five, or in the presence of a Wellspring deep beneath the earth – you could prove anything you wanted. You could be a god, a dragon, giant Titan.

And so, of course, they’d tried to do it.

_Fools._

****

Fen’Harel listened to the scratching of the quill upon the parchment, inhaled the fury raging through her, carefully controlled, and knew she was unconscious of his presence in her Fade, hidden in the remnants of the Anchor. Not surprising, that: he didn’t need to see beyond the cave to speculate that images of him were often in her mind, and that one more might well go unnoticed. Also, she was cross.

“What manner of magic is this, that Solitarios has taught you?” had asked Calpernia, hours ago.

Her glib answer – _Redemption_ – echoed through his mind, the meekness of her tone disguising challenge.

Calpernia had shrugged it off, and kept Erasthenes in chains, just as Solas had done when he’d left him here.

Perhaps the irritation he now felt was directed just as much at him (or, rather, Solas) as at Calpernia.

If so, then he could not deny that she had earned the right to be annoyed with him. _With all of us._

****

This change was welcome, though, despite the ever-present guilt and her oblivious and furious proximity. After a month of smelling those same cellar dregs, hearing nothing new – not even tantalising snatches of reports – yes, after that, to be up near open windows, hearing birds and people, tasting her aroma and her aura, just as if he sat beside her with his arms wrapped tight around her, soothing her exasperation…

He bit into his leg again, more gently this time, lest her pain be multiplied by his.

_What if I simply think of her, and not of me?_

Here, in her Fade, it might do her some good if he imagined her as elvhen: one strong sapling reaching to the sky, roots sunk deep in wisdom, finding water yet unblighted through the Anchor, laying out her leaves in search of light. He would be the stone wolf couchant, guarding her and resting in her shade.

He stayed a little longer with the image, willing her to grow in knowledge, stretch up to the sun and take its light and power. For a time, it seemed to work, and he felt calmer. Then, without warning, leaves were shaken from the tree, falling white as snow, and he was in a frozen cave and slithering for purchase, as Solas’ body shifted, soundlessly destructive. An ill wind this, tossing branches in the intersections of their Fades.

Back to a wasteland of bare rock, clawing at the empty sky, as _Canto 1_ so eloquently put it. Images swept by of Virlath finding the words in a scroll by a beached galley on the Storm Coast; Dorian complaining that the sky ought to be empty, rather than replete with rain; and Cassandra frowning at the sea.

Inevitably, he’d stayed silent. He noted that his old companion’s voice had not intruded… yet.

Fen’Harel looked up as memories continued shifting, settling on a bleak and barren tree atop the Storm Coast cliffs, white and sharp against the black clouds. There had been an astrarium nearby, he thought, showing Servani. _The Tevinter Imperium is not the safest place for an elf,_ echoed his own voice back to him.

_Which is better: foresight, hindsight, insight?_

She’d reached up to the light and found him – hiding all of truth’s most brutal darknesses.

He willed himself the majestic emerald tree again, and all at once he realised she had moved: the sounds and smells had changed. Venison steak – _a decent dinner, credit to Calpernia_ – and cedar trees, and vines.

A woman’s voice spoke, quite close by. “Such a pity the beautiful sun has set. But this is better food than I ever had in Kirkwall.”

It reminded him of foolishness and fools. Green vines that sucked the light from sky to earth, and burned. Kirkwall’s buried secrets and the Blights. _And she’ll burn too, they all will, from the Evanuris’ pride._

The elves had sealed the cavern of the poisoned Wellspring, securing it with stone and magic. A lid clamped on a boiling pot of contradictions, red-hot, volatile. This world could not exist, and yet it did, and he had raised the Veil between those facts.

 “The sun isn’t absent during the night,” said Virlath, after something of a pause. His heart leapt at the sound of her, craving every soft inflection. “It just can’t be seen. It’s a metaphor for hope.”

The first speaker groaned. “Don’t go all Chantry on me, Vita. Only thing I’ll ever believe in is the dawn.”

He wondered in her confidence as she responded: “That’s good enough.”

An image of a tree in moonlight, petals folded, came unbidden to his mind. The old wolf sighed, and lay down in her shelter.

_So beautiful and brave, vhenan. Would the sun still rise if I believed in **you**?_

  



	16. Clear and sweet is my soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 16 Solace, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, recent sighting H4-01-AE297990D011_

Each morning, Fen’Harel awoke and gazed up at the moonlit tree, confused by its persistence.

He hadn’t expected her to be quite so… receptive.

It couldn’t last, of course. As soon as Solas bent his mind to her in earnest, he’d be wrenched to snow and desolation, compelled to freeze his own desires again, or watch her burn. And while the plans he’d laid in train were complex, they allowed sufficient time for detours such as this one seemed to be: _find out who I used to love, and how to use that for advantage._ He wouldn’t allow a loose end like himself to unravel it.

Yet in her Fade by days, as well as in the Nightmare’s Lair by nights, his mind was clear. Somehow, he had left the burning heat behind with Solas, when she’d dragged him from the door.

Out here, and once more sundered, ground down by the world and its convulsions, he was only light, dependent on his will alone, the thinnest of fine threads and veins connecting him back to his body. A memory of flame and not the flame itself, like veilfire: sympathetic magic where the Veil was thin.

Out here, what could he do but love her? Silver-coated wolf, he _was_ the moonlight, painting folded petals in the light of a reflected sun. Cold, not hot: and therefore, not a danger. _I won’t burn her._

He felt… free.

It couldn’t last.

****

He dared not tug at the threads that led back to his body, in case they broke and killed him, or he woke the sleeping giant and killed _her_. He could not seep across the Veil and form a body, for the Nightmare would escape as well, through him. And so, he spent the days beneath her tree, and listened.

The sense of guilt was still intense. Not for listening to Virlath’s words, the quiet ways that Vita traded what she had for information, rarely giving anything away: he had been her friend, and she would not have minded that, if she had known. Not even for the melodies she hummed when she walked out at night, alone, snatches of Tevinter songs she’d practised: her dedication to the character she played was quite impressive.

No, it was all the _other_ sounds, more intimate, that he could never tell her he had heard: undressing, dressing, bathing, toileting… and all the muttered curses at her missing arm.

Demons would have simply fed on her frustration. He was real, or had been, and he longed to help.

If he could have brought her limbs back by the power of will alone, then she’d have had a thousand arms by now, to braid her hair and bind her breasts and button up her shirts.

And – oh! – that he might slip across the Veil, and unbraid all that glorious auburn hair. To tell her (almost) everything; ride east into the remaining trees of Arlathan; escape.

Unbind, unbutton, if she would. She knew that he was Fen’Harel, and loved him.

The part of him not sunk in guilt, but planning… hoped that she would sleep a little earlier, or wake a little later, so that he could find her in her Fade, to talk to and explain…

 

  * _Occasionally, I sympathise, you know._



_What with?_

  * _Oh, clever. With my non-existent heart, of course. But you meant whom._



_If you mean with me, let’s skip the pleasantries. I have no desire for them._

  * _When did we ever skip the pleasantries? Even when it got ridiculous? I am **trying** to help._



_It seems unlikely that I can be helped, now. I am scarcely more alive than you._

  * _And yet you hope._



_I… am not sure I do._

  * _In her, my friend. Not me, though you might be surprised. You trust in **her**. A shemlen. Why?_



_If you see my hope, then you know why._

  * _Then tell me._



_You’ll think it is ridiculous._

  * _Then I will have to assume that we have not progressed beyond the stage of pleasantries._



_There is nothing funny about this._

  * _You don’t even take pleasure in the irony, I see. The saviour of the elvhen, Mythal’s golden boy…_



_Stop it!_

  * _…lost his heart to one of the very creatures he’s mandated, nay, **compelled** , to destroy._



_Yes. I did._

  * _It’s ridiculous. The orb is broken, Dumat’s priest is dead, and you took Mythal’s power, but you still won’t break the compulsion she set on you? Not even to save the one you love, and all my children?_



**_I_ ** _won’t break the compulsion._

_Indeed._

  * _You mean…?_



_Don’t breathe a word._

  * _Naturally not. It’s not as if I’m breathing, anyway._



And all that day, he listened to his love’s light breathing, soft and warm… and _hoped_.

The world was very finely balanced, and a breath might change it.

 

****

That night, he tried to formulate the words for how he would (never) explain to Virlath, what he was.

“On entering uthenera each ancient elf believed themselves to be a spirit and so became one, maintaining a minimal connection to their body and thus to the stone sense lying latent in their blood. Reality became a single strand of thought, of will: I know I am alive. All else was mutable.”

“In the rite of tranquillity on mages, a complementary approach is used: the music of the Fade is drowned out by the song of lyrium, of faith in a shared reality independent of one’s own existence. Templars’ and Seekers’ abilities are similar, as I told Cassandra: by reinforcing reality, they suppress doubt and possibility. A silent, absent or unheeded maker keeps all doubts alive, allowing every individual person to believe in what they will, and magisters and Paragons will flourish, at the expense of progress for the society as a whole. But faith in a **specific** Maker, Qun, tradition or leader necessarily constrains the Fade, and individuals – to followers, reflections, shadows… darkspawn – and yet the achievements of the society may be considerable, whether that be stopping Blight... or causing it. The reality of Andraste’s Maker **is** your reality. But why?”

“Do you remember, vhenan, the song in the Temple of Mythal? The People swore their lives to Falon’Din.”

“I killed him.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place during the "two weeks" mentioned at the start of [Chapter 50](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15251734) of _Not that kind of wolf_.


	17. The squatter strikes deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 22 Solace, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, recent sighting H4-01-AE297990D011_

He’d caught glimpses, as he sank into the night. In them, he’d seen her sleeping spirit forming from the tree, red hair dancing around her shoulders. Not quite the innocent he’d met in memories of Haven, but still so serious and sweet, as if the world itself had formed the very woman that would captivate his soul.

Glimpses, as he fell into her day Fade – as she was on the verge of waking, and alert. Often, he had not yet shed the Dread Wolf form he assumed to keep the demons from the dreamers, and cursed himself in case it frightened her. Although… within her Fade, who knew what image she had made of him?

It was almost worse than never seeing her at all: hoping for these momentary flashes, where they each reached out to talk but were denied. She never slept in late. And below the gritty pain of stubborn hope, he worried that it added to his mystery with her. Far better that she should forget him.

He’d thought that, as he’d laid down by the tree, this morning, once more resigned to memories alone… and that long-remembered voice, as different in timbre from his own as it was similar in intonation, echoing through the chambers of his mind.

 

  * _A woman like her doesn’t simply forget a man like you._



_Apparently not._

  * _Did you ever think that it was just a physical infatuation on her part?_



_Far kinder for her, if it had been. Her upbringing made that far less likely: she was primed to worship knowledge, not to seek out pleasure for herself._

  * _She told you that the Dalish had not made her that way, that the decisions were her own._



_It is wise to take responsibility for one’s own decisions. Even though they may not truly **be** one’s own._

  * _You still refuse to lay down all our burdens?_



_This world now needs wisdom more than it needs faith. I must stay ascendant, if there’s to be any chance to deal with Pride._

  * _Don’t forget desire. If only we could combine the faith of my Andraste with the wisdom of your Virlath… throw in a dash of Valta too, of Ghilan’nain, Sophiyel, Mythal’s soul…_



_Get out!_

He’d spat the words, growling at the sun with hackles raised, and black fur sprouting. With an effort he resumed the silver wolf form, trying to reflect the thought and not absorb it. This eternity of sundering, re-forming, integrating, differentiating… it was a path that no-one else should have to walk.

To be in constant conflict with oneself, to always hold the worlds in balance, bringing order, bringing chaos, strengthening the Veil and breaking it: the freedom that he’d felt here had been one more illusion, as he filled the long, blank p/ages with distractions and denial. Like apples plundered from a tree, simultaneously sweet and stolen, guilt dripping down his chin; and just as soon consumed, and gone. That she could paint a tree for him, and he could be impressed by that… it was a child’s trick, nothing more.

And it reminded him of someone else, another child who grew into a woman.

_I loved Andraste too, and had to kill her._

That memory stabbed from mind to heart like sudden steel. He’d swallowed all the memories of Maferath – both certainty and guilt – the all-consuming need to build a bulwark against Tevinter to the south. He’d listened to Andraste’s song and _used_ her. He’d used her faith to build a brighter future for the elves, and though her death had broken Shartan’s heart, and Maferath’s, they had made something of it, for a time.

She’d loved him, though he’d never crossed the Veil for her; and never shown himself in mortal form.

And though it was not his hand that thrust the Blade of Mercy through her heart, it was upon his orders, whispered to a dreaming Archon. Hessarian unleashed her soul with one quick strike, and he had used it time and time again to seed the world with faith. _Those who would not bow low…_

 

He hadn’t really thought of them as people.

 

He _really_ hadn’t thought of them as people.

 

People were… spirits. Elvhen. Dreamers, in the post-Veil world. Those who could affect the Fade.

He’d thought he’d been too large to cross the Veil, to _wake_ , and so, perhaps, he had, but… the rotten truth was: _he had never tried_. The golden apples of the Fade were far too sweet, and he had been too cowardly.

Until, of course, the magisters broke in.

 

They’d broken in, enraptured by the beauty of his memories of Arlathan, and had not heard the screaming of the slaves they’d killed to enter it. They didn’t even notice he had left, that he had slipped away. They were looking for Dumat, for Zazikel, for Lusacan, for Razikale. For dragons, not an elf.

He couldn’t lose himself in Arlathan, not after that. The blight defiled his memories, turned the Golden City black, and took the souls of all the slaves they couldn’t salvage. Not merely demons, hunted down on halla-back, their energies returning to the Fade when they were killed. The ones they lost were voided, sent across the Veil to walk beneath the earth in Mythal’s grave.

It had happened before, of course, but not on such a scale, that souls were simply… lost.

 

And it had woken Titans then, as well. His agents had told him of the earthquakes two years back; told him the Inquisitor had ridden north then gone into the chasm at the invitation of the dwarven king, King Bhelen Aeducan. A long line there as well, that stretched back through twelve hundred years to its first and foremost Paragon, the dwarf (so history said) that kept the Blight from Orzammar.

He remembered, in his bitterest recriminations at the turn the Fade had taken, long ago, trying to guide the darkspawn from the dwarves and bring the Light back. There had been almost nothing he could work on. No imagination, no connection to the Fade. And worse than Children of the Stone, far worse, for they were bastards. The only sound they seemed to heed was dragon song…

 

_They were **mine**. I failed them._

  * _…yes._



_…who’s Valta?_

  * _Mine._



 


	18. The half-burn'd brig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 26 Solace, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, recent sighting H4-01-AE297990D011_

Temptation gnawed at him, like crimson veilfrost creeping up from Valdasine and Valammar.

It would be so easy to… give up, right now, to sink into the Void.

Exhaustion laid his head down on his paws and tried to resist.

He could feel the darkness closing in, could hear the endless song of bliss…

_I do not want to die alone. I want to die, with them._

A golden spark flared high above the tree, and he blinked up at it, his heart leaping painfully.

The faintest whisper came to him. Her voice: _Lath sulevin, lath aravel ena. Var lath vir suledin._  

 

_Mala suledin nadas. Ma ghi’lana mir din’an._

It was only with Sophiyel’s passing that he had fully, physically, felt the weight of death that lay upon his conscience. He’d known it intellectually, of course, had grieved, had hurt, but never felt that grief in body: clenching heart and fingers scraping at the earth; parched eyes; and desperate, bitter, isolation.

_The next time you have to mourn, you don’t need to be alone._

Virlath hadn’t spoken much, the last few days – lost in thought like him, perhaps. Searching for him in a library, piecing dust and Veil together, speck by scattered speck; her devotion futile just like his.

He looked up at the tree. A silver-tinted breeze within its branches whispered: _Falon’Din. Below. Alive._

It didn’t make him feel less lonely.

 

Valammar, Valdasine… Vallem, Vallas… Valo-kas… Valta. Most likely dwarven, but it could be anything. He’d asked again about her, but the voice had fallen silent. He must have plucked the name out from his own memories. Alternatives were far too strange to contemplate… but that she might be dwarven haunted him.

_No… I can’t dare hope that the connection still exists, that he is… living. Random whispers don’t trump logic._

Although, now he was drawn far from the heat of his desire, if he abandoned hope, perhaps he’d truly fade out into nothingness. He couldn’t even find the strength to crawl further from this tree she’d made for him.

With the darkness closing in, there was only one thought left.

_I still exist._

 

The evening came with scents of cedar, mint and laurel, like the previous fourteen evenings. It was almost worth existing for, to close eyes and imagine…

_Someone’s here._ He had barely formed the thought, eyes snapping open in surprise, when…

Power surged in through a thousand threads: blanking, blinding, bleaching, burning.

The silver-tinted tree was stolen, and in its place was etched a silhouette of Solas entering the Crossroads.

 

Desire, white-hot, ran through his veins. No chance of falling into darkness here; he _was_ the light, and totally enslaved to it. The whirl of winds wing-whipped the dragon body that he fuelled, flying fast to _her_.

 

The burning pain of unrestrained desire drove out all sense. If he’d been in his body, at that moment, he knew he’d have fucked whatever girl, or nug, or stone got in his way. Fire raged around his cave and through him, golden eyes and sliding molten scales.

_Such purity in undiluted power._

               

Only he could subject himself to such deliberate torture; only he could punish and reward like this. If only he could burn the barrier down between himself and Solas, he could burn the world and start afr…

He could burn the world and…

He…

The barrier was halfway burned already, before, with aching strength of will, he stopped himself.

He buried himself in stone to stop the fire, lava upon lava to form a plug on the volcano, grass on top and trees and sky and somewhere high above, a moon to watch me.

_This is what I did before. This is what I’ll always have to do._

 

The cold moon howled.

 

Far below, outside, three actors stood in moonlight. From up here, they all appeared alike.

A man spoke first. “They present as ever, a united front. Who knows what debates rage within Par Vollen?”

No-one answered, so he continued: “An interesting conversation. I will think on it.”

Soft wings fluttered off and then a woman spoke. “It will be hard to find wisdom in the noise.”

Again, nobody answered, and her tone sharpened as she carried on: “Were you thinking that I might embrace my mother’s part within your little game? Enchant the elves with tales of Great Mythal?”

 

**_She_** _is Mythal’s daughter._ He howled again, and heard it as a chuckle: a tree inside a wolf inside a tree.

 

The tree became an elf, himself, and desire flashed through him, for her: “I don’t think that will be required.”

He’d forgotten just how flat his own voice was, now. “I can free you from the voices of the Vir’Abelasan. It will take some time.”

She – _Morrigan –_ responded: “The voices… do say you can do that. Why should I trust them, or you?”

“Because you have no choice. You shall come with me.”

“Not without first understanding what it is you want with me.”

“You are bound to the path of eternal singing.”

“If so, why have I not heard of that before, in all my reading. Why not from the voices?”

“I know more than they will tell you. I can free you.”

Morrigan snapped back, in flawless ancient elven: “And how _precisely_ will you do that?”

 

Another woman’s voice, now, broken, in the thinnest whisper: “Solas…”

_Virlath._ Cold dread suffused his heart, and every thought. _She doesn’t know…_

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is linked to [Chapter 50](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15251734) of _Not that kind of wolf_.


	19. Mead from the skull-cup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 26 Solace, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, recent sighting H4-01-AE297990D011_

Anticipation and imagination were as nothing to the knowledge that the fear he sensed in her was real.

_And that we’ve **every** reason to be frightened._

Solas hadn’t answered her – _is this the first time she has seen… me… since the sundering?_ – and with an effort Fen’Harel focused, not on his own decayed distress, but on her pain, tasted in her scents and aura.

_She’s hurt, and shrinks away. She’s doubting all her faith in me. She’s terrified._

The scent of her distracted him. Whispers begged him to possess himself and hold her, feel her soft red hair within his hands; comfort her with kisses on her forehead as she wept against his chest. To use his power: obliterate the barriers within himself to being whole, to _feel_ , and damn the Nightmare. _Damn them all._

No. He’d fight against the fantasies, he’d fight desire, turning it to the purpose of… the purpose of…

_A new campaign. What purpose can I make of it? I’m running out of time._

_What can I do?_

The threads that Solas used to summon him were still imbued with power: invisible, yet strong, like gravity. He’d pushed the burning heat away instinctively, not daring to admit his own desire or let it rule him. But…

_We shouldn’t. It isn’t right._

 

He took a deep, long breath and felt out with his senses, searching for the tiniest of tells, something that he knew that he’d have done himself, if he’d been tranquil forty-seven days, and burning hot for forty-two of them. He’d have thought that it was sickness of the blood, that’s what Elvhenan had taught him…

…and even though he’d not thought to have it written in the orders, Abelas would know it…

…and would have instructed him, would have preserved the dagger…

…and he’d have read the _Vir Uthsulahn_ , because he’d written it, and knew _…_

…and he’d ignore the scents of Virlath’s hair, her sweat, and fear, and ink…

…and Morrigan’s overpowering, sickly perfume (traces only); cedar, mint and laurel…

…and find it.

 

The rusted scent of oxidising iron-blood. Images were writ among the stars in blood. He’d have bled himself to chill the fever, each drop of blood a sun in miniature, red-hot. Constellation: Judex.

_Mercy. Somewhere there’s a flask of wine that isn’t only wine, but has my tainted blood as well. That’s how they will make another elvhen woman… they’ll give it to Morrigan, and give her Mythal’s soul, and…_

_…the voices will all rise as darkspawn, and not just **them** , but… _

_…at least if my suspicions on what truly happened, prove to be correct…_

_I hate betrayal._

Morrigan, for all her foolishness and greed, did not deserve this, and he’d known that, back when she had drunk the water, in the Temple of Mythal. _Be a dragon! Knowledge! All we were and are!_

_Damned fools. What we were, was **wrong**._

His anger at all that was long since burned away to sorrow. But _this_ was real.

Far away, below his moon-gaze, reality was burning into chaos. Was there any path that led away from ruin? Understanding Morrigan might help. He remembered he’d steered clear of her in Skyhold, fearing that she’d see through his disguise, or cause him, through desire or pride, to bite back at her barbs and trap himself.

Morrigan was calling at her power, seeking to defend Virlath, take her with them? _That’s… unexpected._

Virlath, driven by her fear, was saying: “No. You don’t know his strength! You don’t know who he is!”

“And you do, I suppose?” sighed Morrigan.

“He’s Fen’Harel. I’ve seen him turn Qunari into stone. The orb Corypheus had was his. He killed…”

 

He could feel her biting back the words, but new emotions sparkled clear to him within her aura, underneath the fear and pain. Embarrassment, and pride, and _pity_?

The shame was for herself, he guessed. She’d broken off because she hid a secret.

The pride for him, as brightly lit as if she’d cradled in her arms a Dalish statue of the Dread Wolf – _he is **mine**_.

The pity stretched out to the other woman, where their auras tangled – had she grabbed her wrist? Why pity Morrigan? Who had he…

_Flemeth. How could she have seen that, known that?_

Deep below his gritty surface, dark emotions swelled, of fear and longing. He forced himself to herd the intuitions into patterns. It was the only possibility that made sense of the data, that she would need to hide from him a secret. She’d no fear of Morrigan, he saw, but only him. She might have meant to say Andraste, or Sophiyel, but then there’d be no pity for the other woman. No, she _must_ mean Flemeth.

 

Somewhere far behind him in the heavens, Equinor – the halla – winked.

 

Out of nowhere, Fen’Harel remembered soothing long dead Seekers’ nightmares. In the Fade, each Seeker was a spirit, faith incorporeal formed from faith incarnate. One of them fixated on a speech given in his youth by the Lord Seeker of the time, Lord Alderai.

_Patience is what you will learn. With no city to distract or tempt you, you will practice. You will fail. You will suffer. And when you are done, you will be a rock upon which demons break._

The spirit had lain there on the ground as demons pummelled it, trying to be adamant and failing.

Fen’Harel had taken on the shape of Alderai and lain down on the ground beside it. Half the demons turned to him instead. _You can’t change anything without understanding it,_ he’d murmured.

“I… am… faith, I cannot change now… to… be… wisdom,” gasped the spirit, in between the demons’ blows.

**“** Maybe you don’t… have to change,” he’d said. “You are… beautiful already. What do **you** believe in, Faith?”

“I… believe the Maker… helps me.”

“And does… that… belief assist you, when… you’re fighting demons?”

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

 

He’d looked away, embarrassed, and had killed the demons quickly, feeling… _used_.

_She’s been… **used**._ He started pulling threads to weave a glyph that she could use to pierce the barrier. He’d risk all Solas’ granted power on one more chance to speak with Virlath. If it failed, he’d crash into the depths.

  



	20. Threads that connect the stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 26 Solace, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _hunted, recent sighting H4-01-AE297990D011_

He was sacrificing every other possibility to speak with her, and if that wasn’t desire, he didn’t know what was. At some point, he could not remember when, he’d become an elf again: a sad and weary, tired old elf, who wove the threads of magic from his mind into a glyph, a final gift for her.

The power of the Sun was in his blood, but he could move a tiny part of it along the threads, connecting it to the surface of his skin. The next time – if there was a next time – Solas touched her, whether to caress or punish, that contact would then prime the spell.

And if she ever touched him in his sleep – whether to caress or punish – the spell would activate, and he could speak to her. He’d always admired her resourcefulness. The very grief that poured from her in waves at his apparent coldness and rejection, would drive her into subtle action. It would. It must.

_This is the plan of a coward._  

He shook his head. _No. If I burnt the barriers away, the Nightmare would locate me in a heartbeat, and the world is lost. If I fade away, the Blight will come. I must turn this desire to purpose, find a way to use it._

_That’s why she called me to come, to take a body, even though it took a thousand years of pain for me to dare it. I must fall in love, turn it to purpose... and renounce it._

“If you want me, I will come,” she said, her soft voice choked, and he blinked back tears as well.

****

He’d never been particularly good at hiding his emotions. Controlling, yes, not hiding. In the Fade, those long years dreaming, he’d made friends with spirits, those who had remained there and embraced the life of intellectual pleasures. When he had expressed himself too forcefully, had _felt_ , he’d had to wipe their memories in order to preserve their natures. Just as he had done with Sophiyel, with Cole… and with Felassan. That hurt, and so he’d simply tried not to feel, to protect them from his own emotions.

As Cole had said, his song was… _softer, subtler, not silent but still._ He’d thought that that was wisdom.

Andraste had begged him to come, have mercy on her people, but he had resisted. It had been Felassan’s willingness to die that changed his mind, he thought, now: to prove they _were not people_.

But it had been Andraste, first, and she did not remember him. She’d loved him, and did not remember.

It was ridiculous to think that somewhere, stored within in the orb, had been the energy of her, that reached out, touched her Herald. Every breath he took in Skyhold had some air that had been breathed by her. By her, and all the other wretched souls who’d lived and died a thousand years before. Such chaos was the way of things. _The Chosen of Andraste,_ he had said, _a blessed hero._

He had not meant it. He’d been thinking of himself – too many times the hero of the people within Elvhenan, and inevitably the villain also. _Live long enough,_ he might have said, _and you’ll see every side._

She’d seen him as neither, for a time. A friend, a _person_ , and a lover, yes; but not a hero.

That had been refreshing. How hard was it, not to be a god, when power was inherent to your nature?

As hard, perhaps, as realising all the children born after the Veil were _people_. Yet…

_He’s Fen’Harel. I’ve seen him turn Qunari into stone._

He held on to the glyph, and did not activate it. Yes, she was a person, but that simply meant that she could change. What if she changed for worse, not better? What if trusting her made everything much _worse_?

****

Solas was walking swiftly, long smooth strides; and he was sliding on the snow, still trying to decide.

Yes, he needed to know what she knew, talk to her, console her, give her _something_.

_Can I… could I… trust her? Should she… trust me?_

He could feel the trees pressing in and out, the sliding of the earth around his outer shell, just as when he’d used to walk with Mythal, and the trees had parted for her. She’d betrayed him too, in death if not in life, and left him with replacements for her, tempting him to circle around again.

Others were approaching – Calpernia, and Marius the double agent – so his body hurried on.

Images were written in the skies: the serpent Draconis; Eluvia the sacrifice; Fenrir and Servani.

And then, clear as a bellanaris, her thoughts plain to him. A prayer up to the silent, deadly heavens – _vir atish’an, andaran atish’an –_ that Leliana would ensure Celene and Anora did not take advantage on the southern flank, that there would be good Qunari just as Dorian had been her good Tevinter.

If he had not seen all the ways it led to ruin, then he might have interfered; he might have **answered**.

Ridiculously easy, answering prayer – to push and pull when people fell into the nightmare’s lair, and nudge them. Mythal had been good at that, before she’d died: playing out their lives like pawns.

And for millennia he’d worshipped her, had been content to let her play her game. _The best of them._

 

His way was far harder on the soul, to let the People have their freedoms.

Virlath must endure the consequences, so must the Qunari and Tevinter.

_Silence has reigned here for time beyond memory._

 

But… what if he could be a person, act within the world? A friend, an equal, with her?

 

He saw her, felt her, slip upon a stone, and Solas help her up, their auras tangling, melding through his gauntlet and her only hand. _Even my unconscious body is more useful to her than I am like this._

Pride had crept right back to him, insidious and cunning, and he hadn’t noticed it. Pride in his own actions and his choices. Pride in his defence of freedom; pride in his resistance to corruption.

_What does **she** need?_

_She needs **me**._

 

The glyph was soft within his hands. A whisper was enough to make it flow away, concealed from his own self by timing. Magic flowed out from him, opening up a well into the earth – _Mythal’enaste_ – and they descended to the long-since sunk eluvian, and through it, to the Crossroads.

Pride commanded them to change, and Morrigan refused, and so they climbed on him, a dragon.

He’d felt the power flow out, irrevocably, to her, as she’d placed her hands – her _hand_ – upon his back.

It was hard not to doubt it, his decision. For, just as it was – would have been – pride to stay apart from her, and never interfere, so it might yet still be pride in taking action, in the thrill of _choosing_ , that would be his downfall. He was flying, so was she, and neither could be certain where.

But, while they were flying, he could taste her joy.

She didn’t know that he was here; that he’d cast a spell on her, for her, to find him.

She didn’t know that he was not there; that he was sundered from himself and thus from her.

What she did know was that she was flying, that she saw the rainbow sky and rode upon a dragon. And, so long as she was flying, he saw she could feel the light of Elvhenan. _My light. Vhenan, I love you._

  



	21. Sharp steel cuts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 1 August, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _contact recorded, H4-01-AE297933129D_

The sense of being thrust back centuries in time was sharper now, heightening his sense of being old.

Old, and not entirely _real_ , he feared. Now his senses were attuned away from hers, he missed the music of her voice, the colours of her magic. He missed her warmth, her ardour. His world was cold and dim and faded, like a story of the elven kingdom of the Dales must seem to her: impossibly long ago and strange.

And yet he’d not been there, not really, either. He’d been there in the Fade.

He’d said that many times. It had been _true._ Just… he had been watching the unfolding as it happened.

_When were you at court?_

_Oh. Well, never… directly, of course. (In the time of Elvhenan, we didn’t call it court.)_

That kingdom had been one of Shartan’s dreams, or goals, since he had been the one to persuade Maferath after Andraste’s death that he should honour her expressed intent and promise to the elvhen.

He himself had seen only shattered reflections, empires forming, crumbling dynasties… deaths, desires and duty.

 _So who will be the Queen?_ He’d hoped that Solas, having brought the women here, might have spent more time with them – or any time, in fact. But instead, he’d heard precisely one dry conversation every day, as Abelas bled Solas of his fever punctually at noon: the same words every time.

And there it was, on time, the quiet grating sound that meant the wall was opening, and Abelas’ footsteps.

 

“My lord, it is time.”

“You may approach, Abelas. Do you have the wine prepared?”

“It is ready. The dagger you must use is also ready. Please extend your arm, my lord.”

 

Pain shot through the Veil, experienced by Fen’Harel as scarlet snow, falling like the droplets into wine. The ritual wine had lyrium dissolved in it, a faint scent even he could only just detect. The lyrium would eat the veilfire from his blood, freeing it from the fibres of the earth that made his body.

His cave lit with a memory of Virlath in the lost temple of Dirthamen, inspecting an altar eating magic.

This time, the magic would eat _him_.

Forty-six goblets ranged around the wall, the oldest dark and black, the newest violet like her eyes. The wine could not contain the burning veilfire long. It flowed through lyrium into the Fade, into his mind: a slow drip damning him. And he could not resist it. He was weak; he’d given everything but memory away. He would become a creature of desire, the only thing preventing him from turning all the world upon his whims the knowledge that the Nightmare would consume him just as soon as he possessed a body.

_And if it does, what then?_

Normally, when demons fought, one died, and energy flowed back into the Fade, to form itself again in time.

The Nightmare was different. It had been a part of him, a part of that far-too-connected mass that had been the pre-Veil Fade, where no-one could escape from others’ feelings, drowned in a cacophony of noise. It had been his _compassion_ , the part of him that freed the slaves and took away their hurts, in earlier days.

It yearned to be a part of him once more, had yearned, for centuries.

That yearning… twisted, with the Blights.

_What did you do?_

He couldn’t remember what he’d done, during the First Blight, or the Second, Third, or Fourth, or Fifth. He’d worked it out, of course, but he could not **remember**.

Presumably, the Nightmare had those memories.

 

He’d thought it for the best, when he had raised the Veil – to let compassion shape the people, take away their hurt, their _darkest fears._ Or in his case, memories… that might have stopped him earlier.

They could not be people. They… could not be. He had killed his friends for thinking that, had wiped the memories of countless spirits who’d insisted he was wrong. _To save them,_ he had promised.

And even if he didn’t have the memories, he _knew_. He knew that he had done it, must have.

He had known it since the Towers Age – since the Third Blight and the fifteen years of blood and fire; since Halamshiral had fallen; since Mythal, corrupted, went to live in swamplands. He’d known that the world _should_ be a nightmare, that the Dread Wolf’s name _should_ be a curse.

 

He’d thought he had created Garahel, unconsciously… to save himself. The hero-elf he could and should have been. That thought preserved him, kept him from the Fifth Blight: a beautiful reminder of a dream of peace to lose himself in, even as the darkspawn killed the dwarves and Qunari roamed the surface. Sophiyel and he had chosen all the best parts of the memories, and he had told himself that dreams weren’t real.

The Fifth Blight was the shock that made him wake, to die, re-form and spend the next years in denial. Anger made him take Felassan’s life. Grief forced him to lie, to take Sophiyel’s memories, to _save_ her.

He hadn’t saved her, and the grief was real.

Even _here_ , the grief was real.

 

Garahel had kept him from the darkness for a long, long time. He could feast on Virlath’s soul for longer.

To gamble everything on her, pretend that he was worthy of her love, to keep her in a gilded cage like he had kept Sophiyel… the idea was ridiculous, irresponsible and selfish, callous, cruel and heartless. But, because his heart had turned to twisted, screaming, stone, that’s what he was.

 

Red eyes gleaming, black claws lengthened. It was 9:40 Funalis, the Day of the Dead, in honour of Andraste, when he had woken. Four years ago, today, if he had not lost any days in counting. A solemn vigil, meant to prove that nothing there was real, to check the loyalty of his remaining agents. To use the orb…

He’d been too weak to use the orb.

He should have let corrupted Mythal kill him, but she’d left him nothing else but stubbornness and pride. Pride that he’d survived this long; stubbornness to find a way to bring his people back. And he still would.

_May the Dread Wolf take you, Virlath._

 

_Dusk, and I have spent the day in darkness._

The darkness closed in further, asymptotic to eclipse, to death, to blight, to blood-red moon. He was shivering from cold, from desires that turned his veins to ice. Suddenly his senses twitched to life.

A forest had sprung up from crimson snow; and in the trees there was a halla.

It was golden. He gave chase.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set during the eighteen-day period in [Chapter 51](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15488449) of _Not that kind of wolf_ where Morrigan and Virlath don't encounter Solas. I will leave it to you to decide if that is a good thing at this point.


	22. I follow you whoever you are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 1 August, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _track record uploaded, starts H4-01-AE297933129D_

Long claws digging into snow and ice, black on crimson-tinted white. Red eyes glowing. Dark ears flat against his head as he gave chase. Nothing in the Fade was swifter than him. No-one would escape him.

Flickers of gold among shadowed tree trunks lured him on. Instinct outpaced reason. Questions lingered.

_Is it… her? If so, why’s she running? Does she know what we intend?_

_Is it… something, someone else? If so, how could that be **possible**?_

 

Fen’Harel ran into a clearing, panting. Whichever way he looked he couldn’t see her. He must have lost her somewhere in among those trees, which was… unthinkable. He _never_ lost a trail, not here within the Fade.

But the _scent_ of her was here: a musky halla-scent that beckoned onwards. He growled – half-frustrated, half-besotted – shifted down to normal wolf size, silver-furred, and began to track the trail.

 

The trail led on and round, spiralling impossibly – if she had truly come this way, he would have seen her – sometimes doubling back or crossing over. Certain parts were faint, as if the trail had been made days ago; other parts were fresh and full and warm. There were no other signs: no glints or flickers; no hoof prints in the snow; no branches broken; no spirits, demons, nothing. Only this disturbing scent, this trail.

And he had not been pulled into the Nightmare’s Lair, though it was long past time that Solas slept. He could not feel his body breathing, though it surely lived. Everything felt… frozen. Had time stopped?

_How intriguing._

 

Fen’Harel slunk back to the clearing for the second time, and sank down on his haunches, head bowed, thinking hard. Absently, he sketched out in the snow a picture of the trail. Was it a glyph, or…?

_Wait. I know **that** constellation._

 

He looked up to untwinkling skies and saw her wink.

_Equinor, the halla._

Immediately time flowed again, and splintered gravity; the snow melted away, revealing cruel black rocks. He shifted larger, ready for the onslaught, and, looking down to land, caught sight of something. The picture of the trail was gone, and in its place was just one fading word, written in blood: _Tiannovem._

_Tiannovem?_

It felt as if it ought to mean something.

****

For once, he felt like sparring with the Nightmare.

“You have outrun yourself, this time,” it taunted. “Your mind creates a hope where there is none.”

“It takes courage, to change one’s course.”

“You are no more than one of those wolves you fought near Redcliffe, consumed by pain and driven mad.”

“Those wolves were controlled by a terror demon, which we killed. Besides, I am not possessed by you.”

“I don’t need to possess you to be part of you.”

“We were connected, yes, but you are not a part of me. It is my choice to come here every night.”

“You fear the Void should you refuse that choice.”

“It is still my _choice_ ,” insisted Fen’Harel. He knew what he would see if he looked back.

“A meaningless existence. You can’t win.”

“I can still refuse to lose. The People need me.”

 

The Nightmare swept away its pieces, laid a chessboard down upon the ground, extended infinitely in all directions. Squares, not hexes, made of ash and snow. An arcane horror conjured up a tempest in the centre.

Fen’Harel watched, expressionless, as black and white turned grey. The dust swirled upwards, making up the figure of a woman: Mythal.

“You betrayed me,” said the Nightmare, using Mythal’s voice. Her – _its_ – dragon-wings swept out. “This is not your choice. You do it at my command, as punishment. A shame you can’t remember that.”

“I am free of her,” he snarled. “I could stop it any time, but I choose not to.”

 

The dust became a huge stone statue, dragon-wings becoming arms upraised against the pale green sky. Andraste lifted up her granite sword (its sword) and swung it at him. He leapt back and scrambled up a cliff, scowling at it from behind the broken metal window.

“You killed my Divine!” it screamed. “Countless people died because of you. You cannot justify it.”

“The Chantry was not what she wanted anyway,” sighed Fen’Harel. “I regret their deaths. I did not foresee Corypheus’ actions. Yet, it was not _me_ that killed them. I will not succumb to despair.”

 

It was Sophiyel, and she was sobbing on the grass in Enavuris. He waved a hand, and she was…

 

…a pack of deepstalkers, sharp teeth raking gashes down his flesh. He killed them and they rose up as…

 

…Corypheus, holding up the orb, and it glowed red. He grabbed the orb and turned around to see…

 

…Virlath, dead behind the eyes and tranquil. He ran across the bridge to find her, but…

 

...the whole world was falling, falling. Falling, and he couldn’t find his wings…

 

But there was a word, there, too – _Tiannovem –_ written in a veilfire glyph, his memory: more energy.

And _Valta._ He would leave his fears behind, and go once more to look for people caught despairing here, hooked by fear and terror. Someone, somewhere, must have something _new_.

The Fade could grow yet bigger, as he learnt.

“It will _never_ be big enough,” whispered his own voice in his ear.

 

He turned to face the voice, and saw how Virlath must have seen him in that future Redcliffe: drained and red and glowing: an abomination that must (and yet could not) be destroyed. It leered at him.

 _Nothing is inevitable_ , thought Fen’Harel. He shrugged and walked away. It didn’t kill him.

  



	23. Serv'd with grape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 15 August, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

The previous days, he’d found himself picturing the twisted stories from the Dalish legends that had branched and grown – or colonised, infected – out of tales and memories of Elvhenan. The fables of the courser and the wolf; Andruil and Anaris and the tree; the Great Betrayal. Like seeing double as he’d fed on spirits’ recollections of the massacre at Ostagar – Loghain’s bitter weariness; the shock of Cailan’s troops to see their King betrayed – he could overlay the tales with images of what had “really” happened.

At nights, when bitter cold and desolation (fighting fire with ice) faded to the loneliest of vigils, and it was easier to reason, he knew that history was _never_ simple, even when you’d been there.

People acted, then they made up reasons why they’d acted in that way.

He had never really known (or dared to ask) what Virlath thought of him, or what she’d guessed and when. He’d trained himself not to dwell on fantasies of being with her, sitting in a forest in the sunshine simply talking: harmonising memories; having someone hear _his_ side; growing closer in the Fade.

That _hurt_. It all hurt. Hoping hurt the most.

His best hope surely was, he’d thought, to keep her far away from him, that she might set her mind to finding something new, some insight that would undermine his plans. But she was here at Aratishan now…

_Maybe she has escaped!_

Had it been her goal to do so, it was unlikely, not impossible, that she might succeed. Particularly if she had some way to draw on the support of all their… _her_ friends in the Inquisition. But it _wouldn’t_ be her goal. She’d wanted to come with him, enough to beg, to plead, and, even if she couldn’t bear to be with Morrigan, she’d wait it out for his return – possibly not years, but these few weeks at least.

_My poor gossamer elfroot, clinging so tenaciously. I bleed to take you._

 

He kept forgetting. It was _Morrigan_ that they’d make drink the wine, to activate those dormant voices.

How many priests had sunk their souls – their wisdom, knowledge, greeds, desires – into that well? Enough.

_Too many._

Far too wrapped up in himself to properly observe Virlath as they’d explored the Temple of Mythal, he’d still noticed the change in her during that day: she had become more guarded, more preoccupied. More _worried_.

It had made sense, even without her Dalish background and her slave marks: they’d seen Corypheus die and be reborn; and before that they’d had to fight through countless inhuman beings consumed by tainted lyrium, threatening the troops and trees alike. Sera had been panicking; Cassandra grim. He had felt his own mask slipping, which Virlath would have naturally noticed too. And then, there was Morrigan.

Morrigan had been… intemperate, obsessive, greedy. That Mythal’s daughter could be so unwise was still a source of great regret. Though she had been a victim of her mother also. Why had Virlath let the power go to Morrigan: misplaced modesty, perhaps? Or wisdom’s caution? Much as she’d admired Cassandra and her counsel that the risk would be too great for the Inquisitor to take it, this decision would have been her own.

_Or, perhaps, she trusted me enough to know that if she truly should have taken it, I would have said so._

Perhaps he should have recommended the destruction of the well, as Sera – to her credit – had suggested, but it would have been a greater risk to face Corypheus without it. With the orb he might have saved…

 _I can hear her voice, repeating:_ **_That’s the past. What about the future?_**

_I must find the path that leads me onwards. Lasa ghilan, ‘ma Virlath, ‘ma vhenan, ‘ma halla._

_The halla._ The golden halla story didn’t come from Elvhenan. It was, it seemed, a new one, and while he ought to feel some joy in that at least, it was simply… frustrating, how sketchy all of the details were.

All it seemed to consist of was a statement: the golden halla comes to the Dalish in times of great need.

No prologue, development, climax, denouement, episodes, catastrophe or exodos. One character: a skittish halla (hard to catch); the Dalish as the chorus. It didn’t even say the halla _helped_ , but just that it was there.

It was, in fact, a superstition, with just as much to recommend it as Dorian’s insistence on the grip upon his staff being wound clockwise rather than the reverse. Noble beasts and the colour gold, when taken separately, were found in legends from each age and culture. But _this_ story, if you could call it such…

He growled at himself, and lay down panting: furious, frustrated, bored, and far too old for any of this. It would be as simple as that… story, to escape into a dream again, and not to keep on fighting. If not for the faint brushes of his Fade with hers each dawn and dusk, in passing, he might have…

_But I didn’t._

Instead, the days were spent in frozen isolation, growing weaker, having to grow colder, as Solas bled himself and gained in strength… and the Nightmare came at nights, to feed upon his weakness.

Round and round in circles, and the halla only gave him one new word: _Tiannovem._

That it was an anagram, and an easy one at that, did not appear to be the path he sought. Elfroot and spider guts? He hardly thought she would have gone to so much trouble.

But, for lack of other data, and distractions, the images of words that he’d extracted from it – _ame, amin, ena, inan_ ; _eva, vat;_ _ma, mi, na, nan, ne, tan, ven; am, mine, not, vein, vine –_ were still swirling around the cave when **_something happened_** _._

 

“My lord, it is time.”

“You may approach, Abelas. Do you have the wine prepared?”

“It is ready. The dagger you must use is also ready. Please extend your arm, my lord.”

 

As the scarlet snow fell in an ever darker mist, the cave began to sway. _Was Solas… walking?_

“I will take the goblet up to her today. We will begin the process.”

It was nineteen days since he had heard new words from Solas’ mouth, and he couldn’t wait the thirty minutes as the man patiently and calmly decided what to wear – which robes, which undergarments – wrapped his feet and donned the robes and tied the sash and went into the library and – _ah! the smell of vellum –_ through passages, negotiating corners, and upstairs, carrying that bloody goblet…

He forced himself to face reality, in all its terrifying numbness. The goblet was for Morrigan. The plan would work, and Elvhenan would – after some trifling matter of a hundred million deaths (for beasts as well as mortals would be killed) – _finally_ be restored. He would be made whole again, and everyone he’d saved would be alive, and free; and he’d be hailed as champion and saviour.

  * _But you would not be free._



He thrust the voice away, could smell… a spray of crystal grace? And Morrigan, faint traces still of cedar in her hair… and… and… _she_ was here, as well, as she must be if… if… _he_ was… but… _he couldn’t…_

“Would you like me to take that for you?” asked Virlath.

The cave fell dark, and silence took his thoughts, and all that he could see was _her_.

  



	24. We never lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 16 August, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

The last remaining shreds of pride were gone, and it had fallen dark. No return to sunlight for him now.

The darkness was beginning to take shape; a deathly black companion that would _sing_ to him. He remembered just enough to fear that and resist that, to stop his ears with ice-chilled paws.

_That feeling is **not** **real**. Deny it power._

 

He’d used the final threads of reason. Morrigan had drunk the wine, presumably. He’d felt the power dissipate, leaching pride; separating him from time and world. Vague recollections of the theory, once read, had filtered through his mind, before the words and sense were gone: this would make the split complete, and force each recent memory to him as Fen’Harel within the Fade or fully into Solas’ mind; not both.

There were… gaps in his memories, now… shapes defined by absences; blank reflections; silhouettes.

Past and future felt the same: incomplete and shadowed. Where there had been paths they… vanished.

Images flashed by of people singing, smiling; crying, dying. Their mouths moved but the words were gone.

 

Virlath was his only solace. When he thought of her, there were no gaps. Everything made sense, as if she cast a light within the locked vaults of his memories, illuminating diamonds and sapphires, jewelled goblets.

If she came to him during the night, and touched her hand to him, it would activate the magic; he could talk to her. His only plan. There were no other plans, no insights he could offer. Only faithless hope.

 

_Am I… good at… hoping?_

“Would you like me to take that for you?” echoed her voice in his head, and the replies heard from his own voice reverberated like a toneless torture all night long. At least they were words, not absences.

“ _Ma serannas._ ” And at least, his Solas was polite.

“Do you remember…” she had said, her heartache leaking through the Veil to him from voice and aura, “…when we were in the Hinterlands, and you collected gossamer elfroot.”

“It is a long time ago, but yes, I do remember. It seems as if it should have been important, but I can’t remember why. Your aura glittered more than now, I believe.”

“Solas. Do you remember about the orb, what happened to my hand?”

“Of course. I cut it off. Your death would have caused more senseless chaos, more destruction. It was unnecessary. The mark will still kill you, but you will have every comfort while you live.”

 _Cold comfort, that._ “And Morrigan?”

“I will make her elvhen. She will be my bride and a fitting queen for Aratishan.”

 

“Do you think love failed, that you will call it that?”

“I don’t understand.”

His body curled around her pain – remembered pain – and howled. There was no going back to Arlathan, for any of them. Love was gone, and in its place a deathless peace, where no-one hurt, and nothing changed, and no-one had to sacrifice their love to war. Love would be re-born, but not as _her_ , and not as _him_.

Nobody would have to suffer through desire like he had. He would suffer all the pain, for _them_.

He couldn’t form the words, not even here, as Fen’Harel. He couldn’t tell her that he understood. He wasn’t sure he did, not any more. All his plans, his paths, had crumbled, and all that was left was ash and snow.

 _Had_ love failed? It ought to have been stronger, ought to have prevailed.

But the Golden City was no longer, and the light of wisdom had gone black.

He’d ripped faith apart from him like stone from Fade, fought everyone, and, worse than that, he’d _doubted_.

 

Doubt was…

 

Doubt was…

 

Doubt was… _good?_

 

 _I am always open to new ideas,_ came his own voice to him, as he’d spoken to… what was the Seeker’s name? Cassia? Cecilia? Clara? His mind was a mess of… porridge. Absently, he licked his fur. _Slightly warmer._

“You so rarely call me by my name, Solas. Why is that?”

“Manners, perhaps.”

“Manners have not held you back on other occasions.”

“I say what I believe to be true, even if it gives offence to those who prefer the lie.”

He had felt the quiet gaze she turned on him, full of longing she’d suppressed, and still suppressed.

_I denied her for so long, and I still do._

 

Which part did he need? Virlath was talking: “You said to Cassandra,” – _ah! –_ “that you say what you believe to be true. Surely wearing a mask would imply hiding the truth?”

_Why did you choose to wear Mythal’s vallaslin… vhenan?_

_She did, and that’s what mattered, till I took it from her. Don’t leave me, vhenan, not now. The dark…_

 

A pause, then Virlath’s voice resumed, in memory more recent: “Who are they?”

“Shadows who will help build Aratishan. When Light comes, it will drive away all shadows. The People swore their lives to me, and I will do my duty. I must see to their needs. _Dareth shiral._ ”

_I am made a shadow also, by my actions. Physically in the Fade, and trapped. Banal nadas. The dark!!_

The panic was entirely real, each time the cycle ended. Drowning in the freezing blackness calling to him; twenty million voices seeking vengeance for their necessary – _never!_ – deaths to come.

_…you will never be part of the light again, Fen’Harel… we will end you…_

_…no-one loves the Dread Wolf, face away from the camp…_

_…out into the Void, don’t linger here… just go!_

 

“Would you like me to take that for you?” echoed her voice in his head, the only person who had _listened_.

“ _Ma serannas._ ”

  



	25. Follow their movements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 1 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

Dark, and no directions, time or space. It couldn’t see, it couldn’t move, it couldn’t change. It couldn’t die.

All that it could do was wait, and minutes weighted aeons in the Void. Words discarded meaning.

There was nothing to reflect here, only it itself. A sky devoid of stars, an earth that dropped away to nothing. Black holes where sun and moon should be. This cave was an illusion, like the stars, a memory that place and home meant something, once, when _once_ meant something also.

_I am here. I still exist._

_I **am**._

 

It felt itself changing, forced, through dark epiphany, to burn upon itself and not the world. A sympathetic magic, purely veilfire, feeding on itself, on its desires and loves. It had to trust that it would not burn out.

_The Fade will never be big enough,_ it remembered, realisation sparking painfully and briefly.

But while it still existed, willed itself existing still.

 

Sustained, in deep uthenera, by its own free will.

Living, in the blood and water, of its own past body.

Connected, to the past and future, by eternal threads of light.

Alive, because what it is connected to is alive.

Not alive, because it could not change.

A peaceful semi-existence.

Separated. Alone. Lost. Drowning?

_Purpose._

_A keeper of memories. That was… **is** , its purpose. My purpose is existence. _

_I am here._

It could remember: Cole, who Virlath had let change. If had not changed, Compassion might have helped it now. Instead, it tried to remember, recall, reflect its memories of him, to grow it back.

“If it helps enough people, it becomes more… wandering, wishing, touched by them, Maker loves you, and it grows. But I am me. Will I be more, some day, if I help enough? Is this a task: timed, temporary?”

“No. It is a mistake to ascribe human motivations to them.”

Its own words – Pride’s words – would not leave it, now that it was dying, dead and drowning in the dark.

Cole’s voice, asking: “So I am always this?”

“You are always you,” it had replied.

_I’m me, but me changed. I still exist._

_The Rules are **wrong**._

 

Suddenly, it wanted not to be itself. It wanted to be _hers._ It wanted to have what Cole would have: a life.

 

It remembered, before the crisis and before the Veil, twin souls. A multitude of pairs of twins, contained. Each living elvhen, spirit-twinned, and when the former slept, the latter woke. Immortal, indistinguishable.

It had kept the records, who was twinned with whom, the self-entanglements.

Then they’d sold their souls, and Blight had crept in on them.

Its ocean, in its memories, held everyone: and for a time…

 

_What if it became her spirit twin, if it could connect its Fade to hers and **be** her?_

Morrigan had drunk a well, but Virlath could contain the ocean.

A flicker of wrongness unsettled it, but the thought persisted. To share this burden, push it into her…

_If she allowed it, I could change. Perhaps, I could be happy._

 

For a long time, it was silent.

Split itself from pride, but not replaced its doubts with virtue. Easier to fill the absence of anger with patience, the absence of despair with industry.

It still grieved Sophiyel, and talking to the memory of those it had once known was not at all the same. The friend, so Cole had said, who’d wanted him to be happy even though she knew that he would not be.

_Because it is not **my** happiness that matters. But, that does not mean that I cannot be happy, just that it can never be my only goal. Hence, the People need me._

_Is it pride, to struggle so hard to be **good** , that I failed to recognise that she was right on that, that Cole should change? _

It rather thought they both were right, that either course of action had its merits.

The People, or the people? Twenty million out there, millions more in memory; and _I am not a monster_.

_What would Andraste care about? What would Sophiyel have said? What would Virlath do?_

It fell silent again, until it heard them playing chess. With great effort of imagination, concentrated, listening to where the pieces fell upon the board, it could approximate the game.

He was more predictable, without emotion: reasoning his plays and forming strategies.

She wanted to win, and more: _to win him over._ She was losing the game, but, it rather felt, she won the war.

It wanted her to know that it had changed, that she was right, on that at least, and that it knew it.

But _Solas_ didn’t know it yet, and so it kept its secrets. Good or bad, whatever Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, was, he… _it_ would take her side. Reason said that it was all too late, and he had long abandoned hope, but… a star in Equinor still twinkled, and _something_ had been able to freeze time, he’d… _it_ had not imagined it.

 

“Spirit or demon.”

“The two are not so dissimilar, Cole. While the world may exert a pull in one direction or another, the choice is ultimately yours.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set between [Chapter 51](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15488449) (Zugzwang: cardinal skin) and [Chapter 52](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15533782) (Plaideweave check) of _Not that kind of wolf_. Fen'Harel and Virlath are both in Zugzwang at this point, which would have been a problem if they were the only two players of the Game. Thankfully, they're not.


	26. Deluding my confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 23 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

Time could be frozen, time could be frozen, time could be frozen, and yet survive. The sleepiness of all of this, the lethargy, the drowsy chilled and naked fervour, prelude to a nothingness that yawned with cold.

A deep black yawning, that, with nothing to be seen, and hearing blunting by the day. The day and night now merging into wicked twilight, grey on grey on grey on grey. _I am drowning drunk on blurring sounds._

Grey on grey on grey, and neither sand nor snow nor ash will build a monument that can be seen. Only feeling, ripe and wet, a tepid sluggish heartbeat that endures: indefinite, irregular, and dying.

_Last time, this was prelude to a Blight._

Time could be frozen and survive. Time could be frozen, and survive, and beat again.

A spark of fear, that at Azura’s voice… _no, that’s not her name, I can’t_ … Astraea, Scylla, Sedna… _none of those_ … yet, it had heard her in the woods and feared that she would leave for her, for her, for…

_Sera. My tongue wants to whistle on the start. Sera. But it has to stay still or the r is a d. Sera. Seda. Seda. De da de da. If you try, you can say it without moving your mouth, see? Serrra. Say it enough and it stops being a word. Sera, Sera, Sera, Sera, Serraa._

The odd familiarity of it against the words that bled through, falling from the stars, and new.

_Is there another world out there, that tries to touch me, tries to find me here? For I can’t reach it._

Not the one where Solas said: “the pieces move to where they must, until it’s over”.

 ** _Not_** that one, where Virlath fought on, grief-swept: proud despite apparent youth. _You do not know, vhenan,_ it remembered thinking, when thinking worked, _how long a man can cling to pride, when it is all he has._

_But is there more?_

 

Tiny spinning dots, high in the sky, and he was _pixels_ , they were dots as well, and she was teaching.

It did not think she was really a halla, though that’s how she appeared: a golden halla, in the sky, weaving images in starlight. In a moonless sky she was the moon, the _other_ moon: Satina.

The Dread Wolf would have howled, to make uncivil conversation, but jaws were locked in frost and pain.

There should have been no stars, and yet they’d forced themselves above: a memory of skies that had been once familiar, now spun around and angled strangely.

 _Time passes,_ they had seemed to say, _but we are here._

_I can’t move. I can’t **move**. _

She, the halla, rode off, and it followed, fixed in time and space, and saw… a multitude of wonders.

They weren’t real, it told itself, they were not in the Fade; they couldn’t be. What it truly saw was black on black on black on black, lightening to grey and blinding blizzard white, the memory of time still strong: a day-long heartbeat. Still beating, regular and fast compared with when his heart had beat the months out as he drowsed. Full new, full new, moon tide, moon tide. Compared to that, quick: day night day night, now he was _it_. Hard to remember living, faster beating heart when she, Virlath, had made it skip with joy.

_Ar halam, Fen’Harel. I am dead._

Dead, and imagining that it had stayed alive, and that he felt, and grieved, and hurt; that some maddened corner of the Fade held him, spawning demons of desire, made him see these new mirages.

…a tower of iron, fine bars crossing, narrowing towards the sky…

…a striped horse running, black and white, through close-cropped fields of grass…

…a wall that spanned five thousand miles, stone and wood and earth and brick…

They made it hard to focus on its purpose, but in this pathless land, they suggested… _forward._

_My purpose is existence._

_I am…_

 

_Hear, I can… I can… hear!_

Virlath’s voice rang sweet and clear, delighted: “My first half point!”

His body’s voice was dry: “In this variant, stalemate is worth three-quarters of a point, not half.”

“Almost as good as a win,” she said, and it could hear her smiling. Frostbitten ears pricked up.

“No,” contended Solas. It, as wolf, growled silently. “The difference is one quarter of a point.”

“If you take refuge in pedantry, then I claim a win in dialogue according to its rules,” she argued.

“…no rules for dialogue,” it heard Solas say. “Conversation, yes, and social situations, but not dialogue. I have read more books than anyone alive, and have never heard of such a thing. It would be… possible.”

She was life itself, and every word was joy: “It would be… possible?”

 _Rules for dialogue. Yes,_ thought Fen’Harel, _it would be possible. But is it possible that she will find me here?_

“Yes. You appear to be the first to have conceived of such an idea, and therefore, it seems most fitting that you should set the rules and the reward.”

The day raced faster as she laughed. “Does that mean that I win? And that I may choose a prize?”

“It does. You may.”

A new voice, not so kind: “You should claim a kiss from him. The elven princess and her swamp frog.”

_What was that woman’s name? Minerva, Mythal, Medea, Morgan…?_

Fen’Harel blinked, through frosted lashes, layered in unseen snow, and tried to make his mind make it make sense. Virlath’s anger sharpened: he fed on it to fuel his focus. Were the priests of Mythal… **_helping_** _him?_

_He needed to be sleeping, and he wasn’t. What if she kissed him now, would he…?_

  * _At least it’s in her mind._



**_You’re_ ** _in her mind. You can’t be. Wait. You’re in her **mind**?_

  * _We both will be._



_I’m sorry?_

  * _That might be a helpful place to start, yes._



Furious, and grieving: “I love him, Morrigan.” _Morrigan! Yes._ “The world owes you a debt that no-one can repay, but it also owes him and me exactly that same debt. Whatever rules may now apply, in my mind we are equals here, and I will not have you disrespecting me or him, whatever all those voices tell you.”

_Can she hear you?_

  * _No. But I **did** find a path. Dirth... ma halani… garas… ma halam… _



The too-familiar voice died clean away, and so did hers, and he knew his heart was but a lump of ice. _Fear and deceit, fear and deceit,_ it beat and beat and beat and beat. It could not do _that_ to her, could… he?

  



	27. Speak before I am gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Kingsway is September, then 29 Kingsway is [Michaelmas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas). This chapter is linked to [Chapter 53](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15631549) of _Not that kind of wolf_. And yes, the change in tense is quite deliberate.

When all at once, the magic sings to him, in violet bliss, he almost catches himself wishing he had had more time for preparation. Conscious – _yes, conscious_ – of the scarcity of time, and the enormity of action, and the incontrovertibility of being _male_ again, he loses words he’d planned for weeks, scattered by the sweetness of her scent. Magic courses through him, intensifying sound and taste; it brings a limited control over his body. The glyph he’d made could not permit him sight. Three-fifths of the weight of an elvhen man is water: locked in blood and muscle. Mythal knew that; so did he; that’s what he’s using.

“ _Vhenan?!_ ...Is that you?” he starts, involuntarily, before he hears the words emerging from his mouth. From Solas’ mouth. That confirms **it must be her**. She must have touched him in his sleep, to activate the spell.

 _Alive,_ he thinks. _I am alive. It worked, it actually worked!_

Almost too giddy with relief, and sudden adoration, blood like fire, to remember what he’d planned to say, and yet he manages it perfectly: “L… light a lamp, would you, Virlath? It’s so d… dark… and c…cold out here.”

Erasthenes’ words, with Virlath for Calpernia. With her gift for memory, she will make the connection, will realise he is trapped. Pride would have never let him cast himself upon her mercy like this. _I am not Pride._

She is suspended between joy and terror, but **she is here** , and the whole world waits for her to speak.

 

“Solas,” she says, and there’s no time to tell her that he’s not. “Can you hear me? Your voice… it’s not…”

He controls the welter of emotions long enough to explain that he can hear, can’t see, can’t move; and that they don’t have long. He feels the crushing weight of grief descend on her again, scents salty tears.

“ _Ar lath ma, vhenan. Ar halani,”_ she says, and he tries not to panic at the thought of his deceits. Pride used to excel at this, he reminds himself: and desire is a skilled manipulator too. _Can’t let the past distract me._

He could never have done this, never _do_ this, without _her._ He swallows the past, omits the lies.

“You… always… help me. So brave. I don’t… d… deserve… you. I never deserve you. My l…love…”

“You said it’s cold and dark. Are you in the Fade? The silver wolf I see there, is that you?”

 

He’s not committed yet, and can still play for time. “A s… silver wolf? N… not huge and black?”

“Like the mural of the Dread Wolf in the Darvaarad? No, not like that. Handsome, silver, solemn, sad. He watches me, but when I come close, he vanishes into nothing. Most often just before I wake.”

That she still sees him pure, knowing what he did, sends fire dashing through his veins. He feels fingertips and toes, every beat of blood again. He breathes to slow his heartbeat: Solas and the Nightmare will be searching. He stopped sustaining memories of her in Solas weeks ago, so as not to hurt her by more callous half-remembrances. But now he panics: _was that a mistake?_ If Solas wakes, might he simply kill her?

  * _Just… breathe._



_She must live._ He cannot lie. He wants to, **must** , be honest. “A… dawn wolf. Then… that must be me. I can’t see anything, any more. So… alone. No p… paths. No p… pride. Just m… memory and… d… d…”

“Desire?”

Her voice is soft and musical as ever, yet this is an interrogation nonetheless. _My Inquisitor, my Worship._ “D… desire,” he agrees, voice cracking as if defeated. “So s… strange, to not have p… pride. Am I really me?”

Pride would never have admitted what it was… but… **he loves her, and** **he cannot lie** , not even by omission.

“Focus, Solas,” she insists, but his nature won’t permit it. “Does it feel like you have all your memories?”

It is hard to remember simple facts: the shape of what he has deliberately forgotten; and what he’s kept.

“I remember all… all the people I have loved,” he starts. “I remember you. He doesn’t. I h… had to take his memories of you, so I would not forget. He remembers that he needs to save them, and cannot d… deviate from p…purposes s… set in motion when I brought forth the Veil, to save our people. Let me be your heart!”

“You are my heart,” she says, but he knows she knows neither of them know just what he means.

 

She was always quick with questions, and still is, before he can explain: “Who do you mean by our people?”

“Everyone,” he whispers, coaxing. “Dalish, humans, elvhen, spirits, animals, even the Qunari. I was wrong. There is a way, I think. A feeling. I c… can’t be certain. Hard to explain. M… maybe it’s n… not too late!”

“I don’t know what is more strange, Solas: the way you’re talking, or that you can’t explain your plan.”

She **must** pity him. “I can’t. He can. I am the Fade, it’s all in images. Emotions. Too many! Lost! _Ma’desen!_ ”

 

Those same emotions stir throughout his body, and her scent moves closer. Did she want to kiss him? The electric strings of his body are muted; only blood and muscles sing. Warmth presses against his lips.

“ _Vhenan_ , calm down,” she says, and he is a raging blizzard full of calm. “I’m here. Paint me a picture.”

He encourages her to kiss him again, imagining her red hair brushing against his face as she leans over him. It is a struggle to remember that she only has one arm, when she is so clear in his memory with two. He recalls how shy she was, the first time that she kissed him in the Fade. _She kissed me, and oh! It had been so long._

And now the Fade is cold and dark, and he can’t move his arms enough to hold her. He imagines it instead.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” he echoes. “That was beautiful. Warm. If I could hold you…”

“You said we don’t have long,” she says. He tries to believe it. “If I kissed him, after then, would you feel it?”

 

Nothing is making any sense, his own heart least of all. His pride would have demanded he be jealous, but he’s not. He wants her to be happy, though he knows she won’t be. Not with him. It reminds him of…

“I think so, yes,” he replies. “I can always t… taste. You would be p… prepared to do that?”

“Yes, if he were willing. It seems like… taking advantage. If he’s not interested.”

 

_What **does** it remind me of?! So many memories are gone. _

The stars light with an image of him writing in a book, a great gift for Mythal. Closed, the book is clasped with red, and her servant – _Abelas!_ – has taken it, to present it in petition. Had he heard Abelas last night?

“It fits,” he tells this incarnation. “The plan, there was a book… I wrote it, before… I remember now.”

“What book?”

“I’m trying to... Before it all fell. A red clasp. Abelas m… might remember. K… kiss me. It h… helps.”

Another kiss, and time stops drifting. He can feel his heartbeat, feel each moment dying, blood on blood.

She tells him that she can’t get out of here. Pride would have remembered that, those Rules, he thinks: that she would be locked in these rooms, and Abelas would only be permitted in the lower halls. His senses whisper she is fearful. Not of him, he thinks. Perhaps of losing him? She tells him Morrigan has gone.

**She tells him Morrigan has gone. She tells him that she drank the wine.**

**She tells him that she drank the wine. Virlath drank the wine. She drank the wine.**

His heart forgets to beat, and he can’t think. He can’t think what it means. He hadn’t dared look at that path.

  * _But **I** did. You will thank me, some day._



  



	28. Amorous wet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

The memory of his friend’s voice shocks him once again. He wants to believe, now, that it does come from her Fade, shimmering as she lies close to him. In the traces of the magic branded on her by the orb. That deep and laughing voice resounds (to him alone) through inches of air between them: the intersections of their auras. It’s lightning out of thunder, sparking fires within his soul, and urgency. Knows he needs to act.

Lightning flashes, sharp and clear. Can see a path emerging: chapters of a book he wrote that he does not remember; cannot. Conditions of the truce, that he should not.

He tries to explain: “You… do change everything. I c… can see more now. You are right. You must persuade him. Cannot take advantage. Use the book.”

The path is risky. It skirts along a precipice. She must not become corrupted. He must breach her Fade, leave his. Can ease himself into his body’s blood. She can drink it. Drink it all, each drop of fever, hot and sweet. Will kill his body, sacrificing all that blood. That will let them kill the Nightmare. Thedas will be safe.

“Both have… to d… die. Cut to let the b… blood out. But p… perhaps…”

The lightning’s swifter than his own mind, sharper: blood is not the only way; death is not the answer.

 

_I wish that you had learned that earlier, ‘ma falon._

  * _Mana in the blood and water, Fen. Sacrifice of Pride need not be literal._



 

A while to process it, since words are **hard** , and she… is kissing him. Sun on his face, breaking through the dark clouds bleeding crimson snow. Crimson snow on white he cannot see. Feels her, feels her, wants her. He wants her, and he sees it, sees what is required, and it makes him moan, the erotic obscenity of it, so hard it brings back words. Almost dares not ask, but will.

 

“ _F… fenedhis lasa_.”

Because he is not proud. He is not proud _because_ he is not proud, but because she will say yes. Because he ought not take advantage, yet he must do. Not proud of that necessity. Part of someone else’s plan, not his, since he had never dared look at this path. This is… something like… surrender.

_Ir tela las ir Fen halam, vir am’tela’elvahen._

 

“Be calm, vhenan. I’ll find the book.”

She can hear his fear, his anguish, and he hardly knows how he can tell her plainly, time’s so short, and all that light will fade. “N… no, you don’t understand. M… mana in the blood and water. Water, not blood.”

“The blood in the wine should be water?”

“No, d… don’t need wine.”

Had never let her do this, in the Fade or out of it. Now he must seduce her, blind. Patterns swarm, a dance, and he reminds her of Halamshiral. _Those_ parts he can remember, flirting. Teases her into a realisation. She is quick, too quick, and he remembers courtships lasting centuries, and before he’s had a chance to really _think_ about this, he has told her what to do. She’s complimenting him, his body, and he’s melting.

Thousands of years of chastity and pride, and he’ll give it all away, to a girl that’s scarcely more than twenty.

“It has been… a long time…” he begins, then wonders at his own preoccupation with himself, again.

Not enough to not be proud, but cultivate humility. Devotion to a broader plan, not his.

This is **real** for her, not frozen in the Fade, and she is twenty-two, and kneeling on his bed, and she is _shy,_ and trapped within this castle, loving him. This is her first time. He kissed her, what, three times?

Yet, he is assuming much. Maybe in her Dalish clan… she… did?  “Have you done this b… before, my love?”

“I haven’t,” she says, sounding far more confident than him.

Deeply strange, that he is _cared for_ , loved. And by this… he will not call her a child, for she has braved the terrors and she is his own salvation. Stranger still, that he accepts it. Will accept it. Will surrender. Listens.

The Anchor made the demons flock to her (demons of desire, she means). Feels ashamed. _If not for me…_

_But… she sounds so willing. Wanting, wishing._

 

“Virlath, are you s… sure about this? I would never f… force you, but…”

“You’re not a demon, Solas.”

He is not at all sure about that.

 

“I could be,” he whispers, knowing that he’s placing that decision in _her_ hands, and he whimpers.

**Then** the sunshine bursts through, as she tells him that he’s **not** , and he no longer sees the cave, the dark, the ice and snow, but all that colour once again, the woods, the forest glade, the bright blue sky. More real, for he’s caught her scent, and all those trees are ripe with fruit and blossom: incoherent, jumbled, joyful.

Leaning against a tree and she is kneeling, laughing up at him, violet eyes still shy, but she _adores_ him.

He can’t remember what it felt like to be twenty, but he feels like twenty now.

 

Warm mouth, her tongue doing all the work, and he is hardly thrusting, stiff against the tree. She is water washing over living stone, and… _felas! felas!..._ for he finds he does not want to hurry this or hurt her.

Only be a small amount, he thinks, or it will burn her. But enough to test that this can work.

He pulls precisely that much blazing veilfire from his limbs into the centre, heartbeat hammering. From the centre, then into his _edhis,_ hard with purpose. _She_ will help his body find release.

 

For these blissful moments, finally forget himself. Gasping, even in reality, and breathing hard, both at the enormity of… finally… and also at the hunger raging. Cannot think of anything but her.

Spirit most rare and marvellous, hair of fire, speaking wisdom from that mouth that… _ah!..._

He remembers kissing it, and kissing it, and… he sees her smile around him as he gasps again.

She’s delicious, good enough to eat, and… _ah!..._ if he could he’d shake his head that it is the Dalish girl who’s eating Fen’Harel, or laugh. Yes, laughing would be better. Laughing is accepting that it’s crazy, but he…

…feels his nostrils flare, drinking her scent, drinking in her scent, as she… _AHHHHH!..._

 

Drinks him.

And as she pulls away, and sunlight hides behind a cloud, realises he howled. **_Howled._**

An elf in his own mind, wolf in hers? Seems the only explanation, opposite identical reflection to his force of will, projection of her own perceptions. Can’t escape the overpowering, unexpected pleasure soaring.

That was _new._

  



	29. I must get what the writing means

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

She’s the first to speak, sounding soft, surprised. “ _Fenedhis lasa_ , Fen’Harel. What are you, really?”

He’s floating at the highest point of… whatever dark world this is, where auras intermingle and her scent’s like rainbows. “You’ll see, tonight. _Ma serannas, ‘ma vhenan_. That was… everything. Now, what next?”

 

Warmth pervades him. No longer here alone, he will be with her in dreams, his night her night and not her day so he can _speak_ to her, connected back to something other than this cave or Nightmare’s Lair.

Heart’s still beating furiously fast: he can’t wait to court her, fuck her, find out other things he never knew. Even in the Fade, there must be some. It aches, that he will never know her body, but he’s lived with that; and she will have his other self, to be there in the day, and she will manage it, will manage _him_.

She’s always managed, somehow, and she always will.

And he’ll be with her.

 

The sun returns, bright blinding beams; her rays are reaching out… “Do you want to be… inside me?”

Desperately tempting, but… “We mustn’t,” he admits, and sighs, because he feels the veilfire seeping back to him, too fast. The Veil’s entangled in her. _So after all, it didn’t work._ “It isn’t right.”

“Why not? Because of him?”

“P… partly,” he begins, wrenching his mind away from _pregnancy_ and _propriety_ alike, as he realises his elementary mistake. _Too long spent in Arlathan, and since._ “The dance has many steps.”

Back when he was Love, in Mythal’s temple, still a wolf cub, _that_ dance always started with the woman coming first. And he never would have managed _that_ with her and him like this. She would need time. But…

_The book includes that too. What does she need to know, to set him walking down the right path?_

“You are elvhen now. Do this f…” _For him, his other self._ “…for him. The b… book. Wait until your eyes turn golden. He’ll lead you to the mirror. When you p… pass through he’ll chase you, and…”

He recalls how close they – and she – had been to annihilation, except **she drank the wine** , and falters.

It would have been Morrigan, not her, and he’d have… they’d have…

“My eyes? Why would they turn…” He can hear her swallowing as well, as if her throat burns. _She doesn’t know._ “Is it like… in the fresco runes? _I think of you and Razikale. It’s only then I weep._ ”

He can’t remember saying that, or anything that mentioned Razikale. “What fresco runes?”

“D… don’t you remember?”

 

She’s clearly not expecting him not to know that, for she’s cold with fear, and leaving him in darkness. It pains him that he makes her hurt, and all at once he doubts his own intentions. _Am I wrong, again?_

“What fresco runes, Virlath?”

Feels more real than he has felt for months, more capable of hurt and hurting. He wishes he could comfort her with more than just his voice, but since he can’t… and since he has been _starved_ of information…

…he has to know just what she means. “ _Dirth ma, vhenan_. We are… running out of time again.”

“Dagna saw them, underneath the fresco. In ancient elven veilfire. I translated them. Stories from you, underneath the plaster, in the stone. Or…”

Her voice drifts off, and she sounds as unsure as he’s been. But he knows that _the_ fresco will be Skyhold’s, and that there had been no veilfire there when he’d painted. _He’d have felt it._ _Underneath the…_

“…so I thought. Letters to me, signed by Solas,” she sighs, and one part of his mind sighs with her, knowing that he’s taken something precious, crushed it in his jaws like so much else.

The other part, the part that won’t endure for long, is running far ahead, with ice-cold logic:

_...impossible, and so the veilfire must have been implanted into Dagna’s mind, but dwarves can’t dream, so…_

The part that’s listening to her hears her say: “One by Fen’Harel. He also said that he was Dirthamen. He said…that he had defeated five archdemons...”

_…the only one that talked to dwarves was him… and if he has convinced her he was him, and **knows** , then… _

Words form like a prayer: _He… he… called himself Fen’Harel? But… then… he’s alive!_

“It was not you that wrote them, then?”

_He… c… can’t be… alive! The orb… it was… d… d… destroyed. How… is that… even p… p… p…?_

He thinks he might have spoken out aloud in his excitement, and he hears her laugh: short, self-mocking.

 

He’s seeing the cheerful, tiny, red-haired Arcanist, face-deep in red lyrium, but timely empathy intrudes, and tells him first that he should think about that **later** , and tells him second he must think of _Virlath_.

That’s not hard, because she’s kissing him again, and he can see in her mind, and _takes the runes…_

(Just the runes, avoiding all her thoughts around them. They’re his own. It is permitted.)

…and right now he believes that anything can happen. That seeds sown long ago might still bear fruit, that roses grow on blighted land; birds sing; that she’s right to believe in him… in _them_. The sensation is…

Biting back hysteria, the Dread Wolf thanks her, tells her that there is a path. “ _Var lath vir suledin,”_ he says, trying to convey his wonder, love and gratitude. “You were right, and I was wrong again.”

 

It takes most of his self-control (what’s left of it) to work through and explain to her what she must do:

_Use the book. Don’t let him use blood. Don’t let him kill you. Don’t let him kill anyone. Do what you did just now to me. And she needs a… safe word, that’s what they call it nowadays. He will… should I dare prepare her? Will he notice? Halam’shivanas, lasa ghilan, that’s what they had to say._

He’s trusting Pride would still have followed all the orders he had left: to read the book, _Vir Uthsulahn_ , to read it _all._ But he was good at that, he’d been a loyal soldier, once; and he’d get his reward. _It is an honourable thing,_ he says, _in elvhen culture, for someone to relieve the bodily urges of a soldier._

He gives her a way out, for this must be her choice too, although he doesn’t know where that path leads, except that he would lose her. But if she tries to see this through, he’s terrified on her behalf as well.

“My heart,” he says, eventually, his teeth chattering in the ice. “You have never slept with a man, before. You are very young. I believe that you can do this, just as you defeated Corypheus and were so very brave to come here. But still… It is possible that you might enjoy it, but it is hard for me to hope. You understand?”

“I’m not sure that I do. But if it is the only way…?”

“He will wake up with your taste on his mouth,” and he says more than that, to strengthen her, but it’s that that is consuming him, and once she’s stripped, and he can taste her honeyed lemon sweetness, then he…

…knows that he would never tire of this, would never tire of her, that he would…

…would…

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missing parts of this conversation can be found in [Chapter 53](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15631549) of _Not that kind of wolf_. The old wolf's come a long, long way since Mythal's temple.


	30. Give me a little time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

_She’d said Fade-wolf, so he would be._

Lying on his front upon the snow, silver fur grown damp from exertion, as if a stone wolf statue near the frozen Elfsblood River had seduced a marble goddess from the Imperial Highway, and had wondered if he’d bitten off more than he could chew. This felt – _he_ felt – huge, and yet she’d grown in stature, her desires splayed vast across the sky. She wanted him, she wanted _him_.

His cold tongue thrust against and into her, drinking from her graceful, naked, eager, swaying form.

He could feel his _edhis_ swelling once again between his legs, becoming hard, unsatisfied...

In order to ignore that pain, and those desires that would lead him astray, he concentrated on the birdsong, and the echoes of her half-gasped sounds of pleasure – when he felt...

 

…a silent presence. Hiding somewhere in the… would… wood behind him, watching.

Virlath had her marble legs clasped around his jaw. He couldn’t tell what manner of observer lurked.

He told himself that _something_ always watches. In this intersection of their Fades, some small wisp or curious spirit might have…

And then he felt it, casting magic.

 

This magic was not any that he recognised: Virlath’s skin shone briefly white, lighting up her flushed, ecstatic face and pulsing downwards. He watched in fascination as the light danced down around her breasts and sank between her hips. She ground her _edhas_ hard against him, at least as desperate as he was. Caught for a moment in sheer bemusement at the way she looked – and that she would be, had been, willing, to do **this** for **him** – he’d then found himself entranced by how the magic changed the way she tasted, enhancing it. The flavours doubled in intensity. On his tongue, with notes of lavender and lotus.

_Sweet Sylaise, indeed._

He couldn’t get enough of her, could never get enough of her.

Didn’t understand her, didn’t understand how she’d survived the Fade the first time, let alone how she had managed… everything she’d managed. Was this… some _reward_ , for him?

Curling the tip of his tongue against her, he licked and licked again until he felt her _edhas_ soften, half the tension melting out of her, and magic swirling out and thrusting, back against his throat.

_I am a wolf. I am a wolf. She knows it, and she’s letting me… do this._

He couldn’t believe his luck had turned.

 

The swaying stopped. At first he thought that she’d deliberately tested him, to see if he could make the same sensations on his own, but then he realised she had… frozen. Not with icicles, delicately pendulous upon each breast, though he’d imagined that, and many other things, when he had been in the Orlesian highlands with her (and Bull, and Dorian). As still as the marble goddess he’d been thinking of. Frozen… in time.

He panicked. Extricating his tongue and jaw and head from in between her legs, he backed away from her.

All hackles raised, he ran around her three times anti-clockwise, whimpering and snarling. Looking for…

_That halla._

He hadn’t forgotten it, but it was still a shock, and not what he’d expected. He’d assumed a fight – some demon, or his sleeping self, or at worst the Nightmare – and not a chase.

The halla looked at him, and didn’t run.

It lowered its head, and cast another spell upon the ground, silver under azure sky, a flower glyph that opened up its petals to reveal… a book. Not large, and with a quill beside it.

He didn’t move towards it, didn’t chase it.

 

As he stood, panting, gazing into mild eyes under winding antlers, Virlath vanished into mist, and he was…

 

...in a small but well-kept chamber, dripping on the rug beside the fire.

The halla turned its head away, eyes closed, and when it spoke, it sounded female. Gentle. “You are safe here. You are saved here. Time in Thedas is not flowing. I can give a little time, two hours, say, in which you can work out what you’re doing. What you need to do. Then I will return you to your Fade.”

“What are… you?” he asked, realising he had changed from wolf to man. “You don’t seem familiar to me.”

“Don’t I?” said the halla, and he thought it sounded sad. “Then we may have less time than I thought. I did… wonder, if you’d change to elvhen form. There are… some robes behind the curtain.”

He prowled across the room, and found a bath behind the curtain: freshly heated water, towels and clean white robes and soap. The book she’d brought lay on a desk, well-lit. There was a chair to sit on by the desk, and other chairs around the room: styles that he had known from Skyhold. Borrowed, copied?

_Time in Thedas is not flowing. This is **not** the Fade. Similar, but not the same._

Shivering, he sank into the bath, first checking it was not a trick. This place felt more like the world itself: more real, more Rules. Here he felt like Solas once again – not Pride, not simply a reflection, not simply his desires and memories, but real: like he could change. It seemed only polite to clean himself, but he did so quickly, thinking fast. The runes that he had seen were dancing around his mind, clamouring for attention.

This was not the first time that one of them had left a coded message for another, and he focused on the core of it: the peace negotiation. _I remembered you would help me, and you did._ There would be time, he hoped, to understand the nuances. By the time he had put on the robes, he knew what his priority must be.

He walked across to where the halla had knelt down upon the rug, and knelt before her.

“ _Ma serannas,_ ” he began, politely. “Since you appear to wish to help me, is there anything I need to know?”

“I have watched you for a long while,” said the halla. It appeared to be trying to smile, but could not make its face do what it wanted. “Maybe we will meet again, some time. For now, what will you do to help Virlath?”

“You brought the book. Why did you do that?”

“I… thought that you… might need a way to write some orders to yourself. To Solas. Altered ones,” it added, as it tried to smile again. “I could take them. Get them to the citadel, for him to read.”

“How?” he asked, now thoroughly bewildered. _But if the halla could, then…_

“I exist both in the world, and in your Fade, and Virlath’s, as long as I don’t leave Aratishan. There are so many spirits here that somebody like me can hide here, undetected.”

“Undetected by whom?”

“I would rather not say,” it said, and shook its head. “Suffice to say that I can do it, if you wish it.”

He nodded, understanding its caution. Little to lose, by trusting it this far. “You are wise. It would… certainly make the situation easier, if he knew of her virtues, and it might save her from unnecessary trials.”

“I would like to make things easier for both of you,” the halla agreed, and his heart eased. _Was it… a friend?_

  



	31. Must not write any less

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

The book was empty: waiting. He sat down at the desk, driving everything out of his mind except the need to write about Virlath, to tell the story of the Inquisition in a way that would convince his waking self to… to…

He picked up the quill. He realised that his hands were shaking.

Having tried – and failed – to make them stop by force of will, he’d glanced to the side and met the halla’s gaze. Its deep brown eyes exuded sympathy, and he’d turned away. _No time for that._

“I don’t imagine it will help to talk about it,” it – _she? –_ had said. “Trust does not come easily to you, and we do not have time to test our loyalties. But if you did desire…”

 _Desire._ The very word was hateful, and he barely managed to conceal the stab of anguish, his heart thumping painfully. He placed the quill down on the desk and frowned at it.

“I’m sorry,” said the halla. “You sounded happy, when you spoke to Virlath. I would like you to be happy.”

“I am not frowning at you.” He tried to breathe more slowly. “I am… wondering if he should explain to Virlath what will happen. Or if I should describe what I’ve become, to him. Sometimes… it is better not to know.”

“Inaction being preferable to action?”

The quill was made from the feather of a peahen. “You are very observant. What manner of spirit are you?”

“What do you think?”

He quirked an eyebrow, obscurely grateful for this puzzle offered. “If you were a spirit, then that answer would suggest Wisdom. As would your choice of method to distract me from my sorrows.”

“Perhaps you think I am a demon,” it said. “A sloth demon, paralyzing action. Making matches. Duplicating volumes. Stopping time. Distracting you with images of… another world. _Tiannovem._ ”

“That is always a possibility,” he said, in mock solemnity, but found a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Were those pictures real, then? The wall, the iron-crossed tower, the variegated horse?”

“Yes. But look: your hands no longer shake. You need to write. You must do what you think is best.”

 _Purpose,_ he had thought, opening the book at its first blank page. _I must tell him._

****

The sand timer placed upon the desk – of dwarven make (or so it seemed) – was now three-quarters through. He laid the peahen quill down. Sat back in the chair. Closed the book and eyes alike in weariness.

His mind was full of Virlath – her valour and her mercy, her generosity and wisdom; the way her eyes had shone, the way her voice had caught in gasps. The way that he had left her, broken-hearted, back in Crestwood. The many times she’d promised him her love; the many times he had betrayed her.

And on his testimony – carefully, artistically constructed, self-effacing – his impassive, tranquil self would take her as his concubine. She knew that, and accepted that, and yet she did not know it all.

The only way they could prevent the darkness rising – _the true Dread Wolf_ – was to keep Solas alive, and for that he had to drain the fever. That burning veilfire had been linked to him, to this part of his consciousness, and she’d need to drink it, and drink _him_. This him. He’d become a prisoner in Virlath’s mind, effectively possessing her. The Chantry term _abomination_ was too crude, but it would… reduce to that eventually.

And in time, her body would succumb to Blight, and he would – presumably – be guiding her.

Not that he’d remember that, or her. At least he’d done what he could think of, in the time he’d had before she weakened: force the Wardens to improve; make the Salasari think; take the slaves out of Tevinter so that they might fight for themselves, and not their captors. Even the Qunari threat had helped Tevinter wake up from its slow decline. Thus, from his actions, every group was readier for war.

They would need that.

Strange, to plan one’s own annihilation.

Stranger still, to wonder what his tranquil self would do, and which side he would fight on.

Had the orb not been destroyed, he might have sought the original Dragon of Mystery, Razikale, where she slept deep in the earth, far below Lake Calenhad near Redcliffe. But since it _was_ destroyed, both of the remaining Great Ones were locked irrevocably inside their prisons. Hiding, hurting. No release. That was a failsafe he’d regretted many times now. _A mistake made by a much younger elf…_ One more, among many.

He stared down at his hands, and saw the blood on them.

 

“It is never too late, to try to fix one’s own mistakes,” said the halla. “Or to try to be a better person.”

Its voice – _her_ voice – was soft. Deserved an answer. “Yes, I believe that too. But, when it is millions against millions, how can anyone decide which side to choose? Sometimes terrible choices…”

“…are all that remain. Doesn’t she deserve to know that, too?”

He sighed, and clenched his fist, and watched the blood drip out. “ _Nobody_ deserves to know that. There is no perfection, nothing golden. Certainty is flawed, and so is doubt. The worst of all is hope.”

“You inspired hope in your friends…”

“…and fear in my enemies,” he growled back, driving his fist into the table. He would _die_. He would die, _alone,_ again. “Did you bring me here in order to repeat my words, or to teach me something new?”

“Neither,” said the halla. “I am giving you a chance. What’s the most important lesson from the runes?”

He pushed the chair back, heavily, and began to pace around the room. The halla had stood up as well, trembling but proud. He turned on her: “You know about the runes as well? How could you know?”

“Virla told me. She had no-one else to talk to.”

“ _Virlath_ spoke to you?”

“It’s not all about you, you idiot,” she said. “You’ve got to help her.”

“If she hadn’t come to find me, she could have been safe in Skyhold,” he snapped back.

“For a few years…”

“For a few years, yes, but that is hardly nothing. She could have been _happy_ , if she hadn’t met me. I have given her… nothing but unhappiness and sorrow. Death. Destruction. Deceit. Betrayal.”

“That doesn’t start with “D”,” murmured the halla, and ignored his scowl. “Yes, you hurt her. But you also made her happy. I think she had earned the right to choose you, if she wished it.”

He looked down at the book, his childish anger dissipating. “For what it’s worth, I agreed.”

“Is it that you think that you’re a bad choice? That you are… inherently bad?”

He couldn’t say that. “I endeavoured _not_ to be. Is it… so hard, in your world? To be good, I mean.”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Though we do not have the Blight. Nor magic.”

“Could you show me?”

She nodded, and let the images flow by, spun into thin air: towers of glass; and glowing writing; ships as large as buildings; paintings made of dots and swirls; and music like he’d never heard before.

“That is what your world might grow to, if you let it,” she said, with that half-attempt at a smile, again.

It looked beautiful.

  



	32. Metaphysics of books

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

His attention had been all within the images – sparkling, singing, new – and so he had not watched the room fade back to icy glade and then to darkness. The music stopped, and Virlath said a single word, and it was dark, and he was paralyzed again, in cold and ice and snow he couldn’t see; shedding attributes.

_Parshaara._

That’s what she’d said. A word he’d never heard from her before. It meant _enough,_ in Qunlat. It was an effort to remember, hours ago for him, that he had asked her to provide a safe word.

Virlath whispered: “Solas?”

Fen’Harel couldn’t speak.

Her voice came from behind him, somewhere in the past, and he would wait for her to catch him up.

“I’ll do my best,” she said, so soft he barely heard it.

 

The sound of shattering glass and wards abruptly woke his body. And just as abruptly walking… to discover what had caused the crash, he must presume. Solas’ heart-beat raced, disconnected from his aura and his mind: aroused by a seduction it had no words to speak of. Fen’Harel tore his mind away from longing, channelling its tenderness and strength into his will to keep him cold. Thus both of them were locked in ice.

Yet she was warm, and tender too, and kind.

The Fade would be… different, when he could be linked to Virlath’s dreaming mind, as well as his own body. Different from inhabiting his own subconscious, its images and archetypes trapped in a cave of rules; different from the forest of her waking mind, a solitary wolf. He would see the part of her that truly dwelled within the Fade, the place where all the magic happened.

Desperately intimate, a place where he’d become what she believed of him.

That had been the problem – _var’landivalis him sa’bellanaris san elgar –_ that people became monsters, simply because others had believed they were. Spirits of rage consumed themselves in flames, and spirits of despair and terror… _twisted_. Spirits of love became corruptible, corrupted. Pride became Fen’Harel.

In that, the Veil had done some good. The Dalish had not made the humans monsters, nor vice versa.

His body was safe. His spirit would be…

 

Remembered plummeting into the Abyssal Rift and ending up inside his twin’s mind, what was left of it.

Or… most of what was left of it. Tonight, when she retired for sleep, he’d get the chance to talk to Virlath and… explain. This time, this time, _this time_ , he would have the courage. _I am not a spirit._

“I’ll do my best,” he promised, though she couldn’t hear him.

 

What he could hear was the grating of the wall, opening for Solas. In the lower chamber, he could also hear…

“Abelas,” said Solas, inexorably toneless. “Why is there a halla here?”

“My lord!”

The halla _was_ here, then. His relief was cut short by the sound of Abelas falling to his knees, and muffling a cry of pain – had he knelt upon a shard of glass? Fen’Harel winced in sympathy. _Oh, Abelas…_

It was good for all of them the sentinels still kept the old traditions, otherwise it would have been far harder for their lord to function. But still, he wished that Abelas would not be quite so stubborn and devoted to them. He didn’t _have_ to make obeisance, the first time that he saw him every day. Arlathan was gone, and even in Halamshiral the trusted servants hadn’t had to kneel. Admittedly, Abelas had not been there.

Yet Abelas had _not_ knelt, on the last day he'd been whole, when he’d told him he’d prepared his armour. Abelas had not knelt then. _Let us be proud in you,_ he’d said… _they’ll see you dressed as one of them._

Abelas, who’d made her elvhen. _We will serve a new Mythal, her daughter. We waited for you, Falon’Din._ He still didn’t know if Abelas had meant Virlath or Morrigan, but maybe… since he hadn’t knelt, then Sorrow had more subtlety to him, more understanding of the world… and maybe…

“Tell me what you saw,” said Solas, continuing to speak in ancient elven.

“I had entered through the wards beside the garden, bearing news for you,” said Abelas. “I saw this manifest within the forest. It charged straight at the wards and clove its hooves right through the panes of glass.”

“That is apparent. There is also a book within its mouth.”

“I have just observed that also,” said Abelas.

_There is a book within its mouth,_ thought Fen’Harel, and chuckled silently. _Were we always this… ridiculous?_

“What manner of book is it?”

“I tried to take it, _mirthadra Fen’Harel_ ,” responded the sentinel, sounding aggrieved. Intriguing he’d reverted to the Dread Wolf title, not the old one. “It would not permit me to retrieve it.”

“It is kneeling before me,” observed Solas. “Perhaps it wishes me to take it.”

“Maybe so, my lord. It is a noble beast, and would have been much prized in Arlathan. It is a source of endless sorrow that so few remain.”

“It has let me take the book. I thank you, noble halla, for your gift.”

The halla whinnied, and Fen’Harel listened to its – _her? –_ hooves crunching on glass as it turned to leap and land out on the marble stones outside. _I thank you, halla, also. Now we must both pray that he will read it._

He realised he had never asked her name.

_Apparently, I never learn. Maybe… I can ask Virlath, this time?_

 

The fey mood remained with him – fatalistic but no longer grim – as they walked and Abelas revealed his news. Morrigan had been seen, escaping from the citadel. Virlath had known, but his keen senses smelled…

_Abelas does not disclose the whole truth. I can smell his fear. What is he concealing?_

It felt like… opportunity, though for what he couldn’t tell yet. The time that he had spent within the not-quite Fade, writing out his memories, appeared to have had a beneficial effect on his ability to reason. He tried to put it to good use. Either Abelas had seen enough to know that Morrigan was not elvhen, and that Virlath must have drunk the wine; or he feared that Morrigan _was_ elvhen, that her flight would…

“You must not conceal the truth from me,” said Solas, whose ability to reason had never been impaired.

“Honoured Fen’Harel, I do not know why the Lady Morrigan is gone, nor why this… halla was able to enter into the sacred…”

Abelas stopped, a sharp intake of breath terminating his too-rapid speech. He fell to his knees. Again.

Pure fancy, to imagine Solas – _caught you! –_ smiling, as he also knelt before her. “Can you explain this?”

“She is… elvhen,” whispered Abelas, in awe. “Foretold, and yet I did not know the hour.”

Solas did not respond directly. Instead, as he remembered was appropriate, read over her head the verses from the _Vir Uthsulahn,_ a song of blessing. “Guide me in sweet sacrifice of duty _,_ ” said Virlath, as instructed.

Fen’Harel blinked back tears and steaming glaciers. Those words… her lilting voice, her aura… the memories of long ago – _that fateful day, ten thousand years ago –_ were flooding back. _Ar lath, ar lath, ar lath!_

  



	33. Howls restrain'd by decorum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

For the first time since the split, he’d wanted not to listen.

He’d wanted not to hear her being guided down the stairs, not to feel her trembling with anticipation, not to…

His head had lain upon the snow, too frozen then to move. Lust had pulsed in every pore of him, and if he’d let it gain control he would have perished, and the world with him, most likely. He couldn’t think about her scent, about her… willingness, about her taste. All he had permitted himself to think was that she loved him.

_She loved him, and he must be gentle._

He hadn’t thought about what he would do to her, how gentle or un-gentle that might be; he hadn’t let himself observe as Abelas had placed her… no, he hadn’t heard their footsteps nor her breathing.

He couldn’t feel the pounding of her heart; he mustn’t feel the pulsing of his blood, rock hard, enhanced with burning veilfire; the longing to break through the Veil and stop this madness…

_Gentle. Kind. Observe. Record._

He hadn’t let himself imagine her without her clothes, not without clothing her within his mind in azure silken robes, and placing her upon a throne, the one that he had knelt before…

 

_Ten thousand years ago, he’d met himself the first time._

 

Memories he’d suppressed in every personality were flowing backwards from the future, now that he approached the intersections of the loops, the _fena’taldin_ , time-run-out. The world converged back to that time when Arlathan was founded, no matter what he’d tried… and he had searched a billion paths.

He could suppress those memories no longer.

 

He’d grown up in a village to the north. Thickly wooded glades on mountain slopes; waterfalls and rivers. Spirits dwelled in every tree and cave, and he had found it easy to make friends. Even then, he’d had a thirst for knowledge, and rapidly mastered what the People taught him of philosophy and magic. He’d cajoled each person, spirit, trader for their stories of the growing empire: the wonders that existed in the south; the far-off temples; quiet towns. Proud of early Elvhenan’s achievements, he had chosen Solas as his name.

Sometimes he thought that he could foretell the future, and he dreamed of glories yet to come.

The People, elves and spirits, loved him. Charmed by his intelligence and wit, they encouraged him to dream of greater glories, to push the boundaries of magic, see what could be done if one but had the will.

Only one of all the spirits recommended caution. _Glory fades,_ it said. _Wisdom is its own reward._

 _Perfection is fleeting_ , he agreed, nodding sagely, _but is it not far worse not to have tried?_

The Wisdom he had later named Sophiyel had shrugged, and asked: _What is it that you wish to achieve?_

He’d looked around at spirits of the trees and rocks; at the cave walls, dark and damp. A thought had haunted him for years. For the first time he dared put it into words. If a voiceless object like a tree could have a spirit, enduring centuries beyond its lifetime, why were there no spirits that reflected **him**?

 _We reflect your attributes,_ said Wisdom. _Not your personality. Such a spirit would consume the power of the Fade, draining energy from lesser spirits. Is it worth the loss of those?_

 _It could be a force for good,_ he'd said. _Imagine how much knowledge it could glean, if it could live for aeons!_

_Maybe somewhere in the world, you will find somebody who can reflect you. Perhaps you should travel._

_Perhaps I should,_ he’d said. _I should like to grow in wisdom. There is little for me here._

She had not retained that conversation. She was dead. He must endure.

 

He heard the clink of curtain rings again as Abelas and Virlath moved forward. Her sweet scent mingled with the spice of vellum, a double balm that thrilled his senses: reckless, happy, redolent of wrongs. Fen’Harel could taste her on his tongue, acid cutting through the silence, a liquid warmth.

He listened to the rustle of paper, with its old familiar trace of crystal grace and beeswax. He’d known from that that this was the original; the manuscript that he himself had written, not a copy. The _Vir Uthsulahn_ he’d offered to Mythal, the one that he had thought she’d burned. _Why had she not **told** him?_

“Measure her, Abelas,” called Solas.

The numbers fell like soldiers on a battlefield, betrayed. Her waist, her hips, her breasts, her neck, her height. She was thinner than she had been. _Too thin,_ he thought. _Seems that we’re both hungry._

Solas did not mark that change, remarking instead: “You are small. How old are you, Virla?”

“I am twenty-two years old.”

 

He’d been twenty-five when he had left to seek his fortune. A traveller had come upon the village, speaking of a temple of Mythal where she sought acolytes to serve the people. Healers, artists, singers. He had hung on every word, and memorised the secret paths to take him there. _I will come back,_ he’d said.

He never had.

 

“Then that explains it,” said Solas, still leafing through the _Vir Uthsulahn_. “You will grow. Our rules state you must study for another seventy-eight years. Return when you are a hundred years.”

If he had never left, then no-one would have lived to be a hundred.

And her people didn’t, now, not since the Veil. Through it, huge and muffled, he could feel Virlath’s despair, the weight of naked horror at the length of servitude that Arlathan imposed, that _he had written._

Solas had closed the book. He’d stood up, proud and tall. If he left her, Fen’Harel would have to take control. Take control, and damn the… _no, I can’t do that!_...

He’d have to wait. _Fenedhis, the Requirement of Age. Conditional,_ he cried, unheard – _not absolute!_

 

Anger hit him, lava-hot and old. “Can’t you sense that she is not a child? She is _ready_ , more than ready, for this. You are gravely ill. We do not have time to wait!”

It was as if Abelas was putting voice to his own thoughts, to his own fury with himself.

Imagine if he’d said that to Mythal within her silken robes upon her throne. He imagined it, and multiplied by ten the honour that he’d render Abelas for bravery. Apparently, the loss of Morrigan was…

…or had he favoured Virlath all along?

She was remarkable, despite her youth, and beautiful, and wise, and… well, the book would tell his lord that.

_If his lord would deign to read it._

All three of them – wolf, sentinel, and would-be mistress – were pleading with him now to bend the rules.

“I might waive the Requirement of Age,” he said, and they could breathe again. “There are provisions…”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is linked to the first part of [Chapter 54](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15786520) of _Not that kind of wolf_.


	34. Not even the best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

He had retreated inside his mind, the dark cave, trying to shut off emotions. The Void pulled at him, taunting him with nothingness, despair and guilt. Darkness before dawn, perhaps, condemned to fear the Light.

If he could but save the world, ensure it stood, that had to be enough.

His other half – his twin and not his tranquil body – was _alive_ , with all the joy and terror that encompassed.

There were truly other worlds, and doors that led beyond the Fade. The world was not an isolated maze, but one part of a vaster whole. Vision had been granted to him: epiphany unearned, he felt, by his own deeds.

The voices from the Void told him that.

He did not deserve that knowledge, so they said. He did not deserve her _love_.

He certainly did not deserve, and nor did Virlath, that she should be forced into these rituals of virtue.

Ironic, so they whispered, that he’d put the Rules in place, stating that they’d benefit the People, encourage them to grow in stature and in wisdom, in discipline and valour and compassion. And for a time, it worked. Those who sought the privilege of love had been inspired to study and improve; and he could keep the virtue of his chastity intact. The barrier was set so high that none could reach the heights he’d sketched.

Not even though they lived a thousand years. Not even though they earned his love a hundred times.

_Your selfishness knew no bounds, Pride._

He had lived to regret it. Over centuries, in scraps of memory, before the war, countless maids and manifested spirits presented at his temple, just as Virlath had…

…and each had been told their deficits, and had been…

…sent away to improve…

…and those he’d loved, he’d had to turn away with all the rest, for sake of pride and social standing…

…until only the best and worst still came…

 

She’d sealed his fate, awoken with a single dreaming kiss, for he’d been starved for aeons. A circlet of gold shone under the horizon, to crown her with the dawn and stars. She would not be sent away.

_Provided Solas read the halla’s book._

 

He was not reading now, but inscribing. A single digit 1 upon the parchment.

Fen’Harel knew – _and **how** he knew –_ that sound. Anything but 1, he’d thought, eventually. Anything but 1, and he could cut the process short before the ruination came. But 1 meant chastity, and purity, and more.

He idly wondered what he’d have done, if she had not been quite so… chaste.

Naturally, there had been… and still were… provisions, in the _Vir Uthsulahn_. He’d always had… contingencies.

 

“We start with one,” said Solas. Fen’Harel felt her scent inflame him as he walked towards her.

He’d been so proud, through all those years, that he had never once become distracted: not by their naked forms or smiles, their hair or eyes or lips or thighs. But then they – and the women who’d attended them: their sisters, mothers, spirit-mentors – expected him to be perfection. He’d never liked to disappoint them.

And that had been his reputation: polite and inaccessible. Impeccably trained. Well-mannered. He’d wondered why they kept on coming, striving for perfection in his sight. Always so _hopeful_ , each time they’d sought an audience with him. _My lord,_ they’d said. _Your Worship. Sire._ Solas would remember others.

It would have spoiled it for them all, if he had decided to pick one. _Wisdom as its own reward,_ he’d thought. The ones he’d loved the most – the virtuous, the wise – had left him first, and some had found his twin.

But Virlath wouldn’t have the chance to leave him.

 

His finger – or a semblance of it, scarcely still connected in this post-Veil world – would be…

She would bite her lips and gasp and tremble, on the floor and naked, kneeling…

 

The golden sun was all around horizon, a fiery circlet pulsing flame, engorged and tight. He was but a wolf’s breath from desire, and breaking through to take her, now, to take her, then, and take her, take her, take…

 

The sound of rustling, softer than the _Vir Uthsulahn_ , released his breath: a gentle, sweet reality to lay beside the harshness of his own misplaced perfection. She mattered, and she was not perfect.

Not that he’d tell Solas that.

He focused on his breathing, not on hers. _The tide rises, the tide falls, the sea endures, the moon endures._

 

“You may stand if you find it more comfortable,” said Abelas, sounding now quite thoroughly embarrassed.

 

Nothing in any world could make him comfortable with this either. He had been obsessed with virtue, seeking the expansion of the Fade. Knowledge, learning, wisdom, beauty: he had loved his library, not them.

And yet, they came.

They came, with magic, kneeling on the floor, and came and came again. He never did deny them that, the pleasure of his magic, occasionally a smile, a laugh. Provided they had made appropriate progress.

None of them had seen _him_ naked. None of them had had his aura.

None of them had…

 

Scent like rainbows, sunshine seen through weeping eyes, hot mouth, and he was _slain_.

_Sweet Sylaise. I howled._

He was burning hot, and hard, and breathing. A miracle, his body’s voice remained so steady. _Training,_ he reminded himself, and felt a dark amusement creeping back. _Elvhenan was not **all** bad. We did learn control._

 

“Do you know what this tome is, or how I came by it?” Solas paused, and when no answer came, continued: “It is a testimonial of the deeds of Virlath Al’var Lavellan, Herald of Andraste and Inquisitor, brought to me by a noble golden halla. You are Virlath Al’var Lavellan, are you not? Speak, I need to hear you.”

She could barely get the words out, panting: “Yes I am. Might the halla be the one we call Hanal’ghilan?”

“Tell me of this Hanal’ghilan,” asked Solas. Fen’Harel tasted paper on his tongue: he would have made the finger-motions slower to enable her to speak. In ages gone, he’d often had them learn a ream of poetry…

Instead, her broken voice told Dalish legends: golden flanks and long brown horns, and need, and sanctuary.

 _The Dalish girl ate Fen’Harel,_ he thought, _and I do not deserve her love._

  



	35. Draining strength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is parallel to [Chapter 55](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15884194) of _Not that kind of wolf_. 
> 
> If you're reading both of the stories, the safest way to avoid spoilers might be to read the chapters in the order of upload date, since each new chapter of either story gives more information which feeds back into the other. Dirthamen is not called the Keeper of Secrets for nothing.

_We have little time,_ he’d said – or, rather, Solas had. _Beloved, look at me. I will restore the world of the elves. My body must die, and the entire world will suffer Blight as a consequence. It will be devastating. Moreover, my blood and other gifts… allowing you to possess the dragon Razikale. The Nightmare demon will attempt to possess the dragon Lusacan. Together we will have the strength to prevent it. We will wipe the world clean, and re-found Arlathan as a new Elgar’nan and Mythal._

Neither his twin nor his memory-stripped self could see beyond past glories. The flame was his alone.

He’d not thought it was wise to write a full disclosure in the book the halla gave him: what if she delivered it to unknown hands? Solas would know that he was sentient, and living, from his handwriting. There would be time, he told himself, to “talk” with Virlath soon, and through her tell his body that his twin was still alive.

Through her, they could figure out a new plan.

“It was like you said in Tarasyl’an Te’las… you would put things back the way they were before?”

Virlath’s voice was soft, enticing. Fen’Harel could feel, could tell, that this new plan would work. His twin had seen a path, and if _he_ had, then surely, surely Solas and himself could reconstruct it. His desire, this him, was full of purpose, and he…

“I remember no such conversation. But time is circular,” continued Solas. “How else would we recover immortality?”

_How else, indeed?_

This excitement, this exhilaration, that he might confide again, might speak, might comfort and give consolation to himself… he had not dared to dwell on it until his mouth had shaped the word _beloved_.

_I **will** not die alone._

****

“I would prefer silence,” she had said. _Ma nuvenin._

The scent of oil – its recipe recorded in the _Vir Uthsulahn_ , but long predating it – transported him to Mythal’s temple. He could almost hear the sound of singing, the harmonies they’d never since regained. Not even in Arlathan, not even in its memory, never since the Veil. Not since they had entered this _din’anshiral._

Now he knew that she had left him, first.

 

The young man it had studied in the cave was burning with a passion that the Stone herself might envy. Not since it had sought to map the surface had it seen an individual with which it felt such kinship. A learning thirst, a drive for knowledge: he wanted to know everything, talking even unto spirits of the dead to gain their trust. It could not reach the clouds alone, but with him it could…

“Friend of the dead,” it whispered, for it did not know his name.

The man had looked up, startled. Perhaps he was not used to being addressed by a being that he could not see, it realised, and rapidly assembled its own avatar, from mud and clay, to look like him.

“Falon’Din,” it said again, and smiled, for it had not known how exquisitely the language of the cloudgazers would sing within its mouth.

“Who are you?” asked the man. He spoke with gentle politeness, and the Titan bowed.

“You may call me Dirthamen.” It was a joke, an anagram: Earth Mind.

It was a joke that Solas wouldn’t get for centuries. It did not say: _I am the mind of a Titan, the ones who make the Fade that you explore, the energy from which your friends the spirits of the dead may grow._

“ _I am Knowledge,_ ” he repeated. “Knowledge of what?”

“ _Dirthara-ma,”_ it answered, then again within its own tongue: “May you learn.”

It knew he knew that it was not a spirit, but it didn’t know if he knew that it knew. _How strange,_ it thought, _to live with such uncertainty._

 _How strange,_ it thought again, then: _may I learn._

Somehow it had overlooked the fact the man might have his own name. It had never seen a spirit of the air take elven form. By the time the Titan realised, it had made a pact with Pride.

 

Fen’Harel could almost feel her body, all sinuous curves and scented skin, the charge of electricity between them. He had _made_ her, he had shaped her. Moulded, flexed and pressed against her, waxed and waned through many centuries and lives. It was hard to remember she was just one woman only.

He had seen so many.

 

They had come to Mythal’s temple, women, long before he’d had a thought of mistresses or sex, and quietly requested his attentions. _My back is sore, and only Solas can attend it. I have this pain, I don’t really want to say where… well, my leg, if you must know. High up. Higher. In between my legs, just there._

When Falon’Din had heard of it, as they had exchanged memories – the usual twilight ritual – he’d laughed.

 _Dirthamen,_ he’d said, _they are attracted to you. Why not make them happy?_

 _Mythal would not like it if I took advantage,_ it had answered. _Besides, it is a virtue to be chaste._

_You wanted to be a man. This is a part of it._

_Not a **necessary** part of it._

_Is it not good, to make others happy?_

“You’re mine,” had whispered Solas, and he’d shuddered just as she did. Her aura had flared out with lightning flame. And he had kissed her. Kissed her until she sang with nothing but desire. Kissed her, thrust his magic into her, and left her. Snow was falling, she was falling. He was falling harder: _I will take you._

Her mouth was a breach unto his virtue.

Fen’Harel was nothing but the flame.

_Light, thy name is lava._

This state of ecstasy was overwhelming, this feeling of oneness with her mind, her spirit, which perhaps explained the magnitude of shock to wake and find himself with Shartan’s face pressed angrily to his.

“You thought you would take her from me, _Fen’Harel,_ ” it hissed. “You thought you would take her from _herself_. How can someone take such pride in virtue, yet have no virtue themselves?”

He had remembered Fen’sulevin, and summoned the **forget** , but the spirit’s purpose had grown stronger.

Far, far stronger than he had anticipated. Shartan sent him flying back, a blazing arrow in his open mouth.

Somehow he had overlooked a…

  



	36. Helpless to a red marauder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

Shartan’s arrow lodged in his throat, and he couldn’t find the energy to spit it out and speak. Like the old, old days of Elvhenan, when magic was as natural as breathing, and every breath was granted like a precious gift.

_Defy me, fool, and suffer._

Like the old days, where you never could be sure who lied, or who’d wear someone else’s face. Like the Nightmare’s Lair, where every worst mischance would manifest before you. That need to be a predator, to hoard the power, protect the prey. To pretend a war until it all came real, and then regret it till the end of…

And Shartan, here within her now, meant there would be no end. They would go on forward, back to pre-Veil days, before the elven kingdom of Halamshiral, before Andraste… back to the days of Arlathan, and they would say **forget** , and they would stop regretting, never learn, and do it all again.

_A blight wolf, mad with the pain of its own infection… an eternity of torment._

The arrow flamed, a burning in his throat, a punishment, and he remembered… _do not think…_

Instead, he watched and listened.

 

Shartan paced around the room, naked in a borrowed body, recreating Solas’ chamber from her memories, reading thoughts that ought never to have been available to read. _It **remembered** me, _ thought Fen’Harel, as quietly as he could. _So how did it regain its powers, his memories?_

He let his eyes track Shartan, noticing each new creation: the fireplace, a pile of ash within it; the window panes, with glass as fake as calmness; their curtains; the bed, with pillows, sheets and soft green blanks…

“Blankets,” said Shartan. “That’s what they call them nowadays, not blanks.”

Deep inside, two thoughts fell into place. He left them alone, to agonise at later, when he… when he…

“I will protect her from you, wolf,” it snarled. “Or should that be… old fox?”

The golden arrow disappeared, but not the pain, and not the paralysing force that held him trapped.

Shartan made him small, and weak, and thrust him underneath the bedside table: a fennec fox. Then it blew the ash around the room, and laid down on the floor, apparently asleep. Apparently an elf, and not a demon.

 

The wolf could feel Virlath: her happiness, her ecstasy, her mindlessness. Yet she was not quite gone, her mind still able to affect her dreams. He watched her piece her shattered will together, her unclothed body coalescing by the bed, and tried to reconcile himself to fate. _This was – more or less – what you had planned as well,_ he whispered to himself. _What gives you the right to judge him harshly?_

His thoughts still lurked inside, two hidden seams of silver to be mined. Later, when the spirit was distracted.

He shuddered, and shuddered again. Bad enough, to hear her cries of pleasure. But to see…

She opened her eyes, and so Fen’Harel did not dare close his.

 

“We should get dressed first, before we talk,” said Shartan to her, wearing Solas’ face and body.

Every nerve and fibre of that body was familiar to him, his ears and cheeks and ribs and thighs. Its desire for her, its need for her was obvious, and he could hardly understand why Shartan didn’t push her on the bed and have her then. _I can taste her on my lips,_ he thought, out loud, as Virlath stumbled to her feet and cast a shy glance back at his doppelganger. _She’s ripe, so ripe that he must smell her need. Why make her dress?_

He watched her leave the room, and thrashed his striped tail in a feigned frustration. As he had hoped, it got Shartan’s attention. The spirit – _demon_ – strode across the room, a younger man than he had been for years.

“Because this is what you’d do,” it said, bending down to glare at him. “Deny yourself for centuries.”

“Millennia,” he whispered, throat still aching.

The glare upon his own face deepened angrily. “By coming here, you sacrificed her to the Nightmare. By _coming_ in her mouth! How could you have cared so little for her, that you’d do that? Couldn’t you have simply let her die? You brought yourself into her mind! It’s bound to target her!”

It was in danger of becoming a rage demon, and that wouldn’t do at all. The only way was…

“ _Desire._ You also know the only way to stop the Nightmare now,” the demon continued, stroking its half-hard cock with his own long fingers. “If you wish to protect her from us both, you’ll have to watch me do it.”

He pretended to pause and think about it. “Very well. I’ll watch.”

“You do that, then.”

 

On his own, so he took out one of the thoughts that festered, that he had not foreseen. His consciousness had travelled in the Fade to her, as swiftly as… a golden arrow. The power that she’d swallowed – willingly! – would need to travel through her _body_ , not the Fade, and most of it would be absorbed by her. He’d have to search her dreams for pieces, make a web of threads, and only pull them back when he was ready.

The vein of silver hope was: in the meantime it could strengthen her, not him. She might **survive** this.

The grim grey dust obscuring it said: it’s far more likely that she’ll die.

For now, the only way to stop the Nightmare making its dread lair within her mind was to fill her dreaming mind with lust. Only desire was old and strong enough to save her. _She’s twenty-two. She scarcely knows…_

He drowned out the thoughts with silence. No choice today: she **must** desire this spirit in his place.

Every alternative was worse, but this was worse as well.

 

Both were dressed now, Shartan a preening prince in black, and Virlath beautiful in dark maroon. She wore a plunging leather bodice and a silken skirt, with a crown of lotus on her head. Anachronistic, but more last century than last millennium. He guessed the clothes were her idea. She was gloriously eager, and it…

…the demon, that is…

…was hungry.

They’d be eating, and he saw it all through Virlath’s eyes: the bowls of chicken broth, a tower of bread rolls on a wooden platter, red wine filling crystal goblets. Like everything in this bedevilled place, a metaphor.

“You are so beautiful,” the demon said, making his own honest words a lie. It leant down to kiss her, and it…

…slipped his arms around her like he would have, slid his hands around her hips, to feel their silken curves, their rounded flesh, and he could almost see her naked, gasping in his arms, and she…

…was sitting in a chair, and listening to the demon speaking nonsense words as if they’d been poetry.

 

And as he watched in bitter hope, he saw the skies tear open and pour rain into the lake outside.

He heard something at the window, battering against the glass. Virlath didn’t notice. She just smiled, and ate. Mechanically, one spoon of chicken soup after another, as the demon flung its hand up like a puppeteer. It made the table disappear, and had her grind herself upon its lap. To and fro, upon his cock, mechanically.

_I would not have used her like that._

_Would I?_

  



	37. The moon that descends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is linked to [Chapter 56](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/15964126) of _Not that kind of wolf_... or at least a small part of it. Time goes painfully slowly when you're not having fun.

The bed obscured his vision of the windows, which was… appropriate, he supposed. A fennec in her mind, seeing what she saw… and what she saw was sex. Pleasuring herself against a demon, kneeling on its lap, shaping it by her desires to look like his true form. He wasn’t sure if he should find it gratifying.

And yet she fought. He couldn’t see the fearful lightning, but it flashed the room with green.

_She knows something’s wrong._

The demon – what was left of Shartan – knew it too. It eased her up on to her feet and led her to the bed.

Should he try to warn her? Her bare feet danced towards the bedside table. Under it he still lay paralysed, his power limited by what she could transfer to him. First she’d have to know that he was here. He focused all his will to make her see him, and felt his tail thrash of its own accord. A tiny silver thread.

_It is a start._

Virlath sat on the edge of the bed, smiling at the demon as it slid her dress up, over ankles, calves and knees, gently pushing them apart. Fen’Harel knew the demon wanted him to see it all, wanted him to… envy.

It stroked the soft skin of her inner thighs, caressing it with calloused thumbs and old long fingers. He could not drag his eyes away. How eagerly it longed to drink her psyche, to satisfy itself by draining her of all that made her satisfying. That look of rapt intensity it mirrored from her memories of him, that gentle lust, that total self-absorption, that utter selfishness, that cruel and twisted focus on himself…

_She should not love me._

_She should **not** love **me**._

“I feel in need of dessert,” said the demon, and he felt the mirror break, and threads form from each shard.

Awareness wakening within her just as she leant back upon the bed to let it…

_It is not me. It is not me. It does not even speak like me. It is **not** the Sun._

“D…” he managed, and with a rush he found that he _could_ speak: “don’t s… sp… talk. Your… d…”

Breath and forming words were hard, the fire must have air. The threads could pull him over to the fireplace, where he could: “dialogue is at,” he continued, growling with the effort, “atr… terrible.”

Fen’Harel looked down, finding he was not a fennec. A frightening chimera: half elf, half wolf, shifting in and out of form as Virlath fought against the demon and he gathered threads. _But not a fennec. Excellent._

_Maybe she can do this after all._

Standing in the midst of tables, desks and lamps and fires, as they winked and blinked around the Fade, he focused on her face and on her eyes. _Vhenan, vhenan, please try to see me._ Through the windows he had seen a golden halla, furiously swimming in the lake. He hoped that she could see it too. Another flash of lightning lit the world in green, and somewhere in the blackened sky above the halla grew a monstrous rift.

_Fenedhis, it’s the Nightmare!_

It wasn’t even night-time, and the Nightmare found her. The demon seemed to realise it as well, because it pushed her dress up further, used his hands to urge her thighs apart, and buried his tongue...

Its tongue that looked like his. If it hadn’t been here, he’d have been the one to have to do this. Sucking, squeezing, nipping, biting, making all those delicate sounds fall from her mouth, as she lay fully back upon the bed, red hair a corona, starlit beauty, tasting…

 

_It’s just a dream._

_It’s just a dream._

_I will not be envious._

 

Ten thousand years he’d known the Fade was real, first before and now beyond the Veil. How could he now tell himself it was a dream? The emptiness would claim him. _If it’s just a dream then what am I?_

 

Clinging to his threads he listened. Virlath didn’t even know her own name; she was just a girl who someone pleasured. _I will never forget you,_ he’d said, and had meant it, every part of him, when he’d been real.

He’d drenched the world in tears for poor Andraste; he’d cried and cried for poor Sophiyel.

He’d sat behind the desk for Virla; logged her.

_You are not just one more girl._

_Every single person matters._

_Spirits are people too._

_I am **not** a dream._

_I will **not** be envious._

Her head tossed from side to side, mouth gently parted, eyes tight shut, as the man who looked just like him worshipped and caressed her with his tongue. His hands were clamped around her hips, pushing them into the bed to seek the perfect angle, perfect rhythm. Fen’Harel longed to…

…longed to… _help_.

 

_Virla, your name is Virla. Remember your name, Virlath!_

_I will not be envious,_ he promised. _I will not be envy. **I** will not be Envy._

He sat down at the desk and panicked. If he tried to rush at power, pulling at his threads too fast, the Nightmare would detect it and consume them all. If he never gained his power, Shartan would consume poor Virla. If the Nightmare had been further out, distracted, he’d have had more time…

Shartan levered up her bare left thigh. Both of them were waist-down-naked. Gently, slowly, just like he’d imagined... Fen’Harel swallowed, hard, as Shartan fucked her. Lying with her, lying to her, and he…

…had to recognise that she was fighting. An entire ocean filled the world outside, broken trees and marble statues swimming in the swollen lake that pressed against the windows.

He could almost hear her crack: _wait, that’s not the moon, it’s…_

He could almost see his own self glaring, as his own corruption cracked her. Through the windows, reaching for her, saving her from Shartan. Still no elven hand of god, but frozen tentacle of death around her waist.

She was screaming but he had no voice to lie with, tell her it would all be made all right. Frantically he pulled at threads and… found that he had snared the halla. Had he caught a smile before it yielded power?

There would never be a chance to talk, and all that he could ever do was get her safely out.  

And so he cried, with all the halla’s power: “Virlath, **wake up!** ”

  



	38. The angry base of disjointed friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 29 Kingsway, 9:44 Dragon /  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: synchronized_

Virla disappeared, fading to the waking world. The halla vanished with her. Fen’Harel stared across the dimness at the Nightmare thrashing, a single tentacle thrust through the window, holding nothing. It would not remain confused for long; they had to run. And that meant persuading Shartan – Felassan, Fen’sulevin – they were allies. Even in this weakened state, he had his mental faculties again, he had his cunning.

_Let me be a rogue and not a mage. Let me use the name he chose: Felassan._

Felassan scrambled to his feet, cursing in the sudden dimness. “What in blessed Mythal’s name was that?”

“Explanations later, _lethallin,_ ” growled Fen’Harel, watching the tentacle as it drew back through the window. The Nightmare had retreated to a moon already. “I am glad you live. If you want to stay alive, release me!”

His former agent’s eyes widened in shock, and he felt his bonds weaken slightly. With effort he could see the elvhen man as he had truly looked, rather than a mirror of himself, half-naked.

Felassan’s voice was deeper than his own: “Glad? I beg leave to doubt that.”

He tracked the man’s gaze to the bed and suppressed a shudder. Deliberately, he deepened his own voice, softening the tone. “When did I ever reprimand you for doing what was necessary, Felassan?”

The only answer was a shrug.

 _Time for half-truths._ “I am glad you live,” he repeated, wishing the man would turn and see the aching sorrow in his eyes. “You were right, and I was wrong. What was it you said to me? _They’re stronger than you think, you know. Why not let the girl try?_ ”

“The situations are hardly equivalent!”

“Briala had her chance.”

Felassan turned around at last, clothed in long grey robes, and fuming. “You took back the eluvians.”

Fen’Harel sighed, but kept his voice patient. “Faced with the Qunari threat, you’d have done the same. Many things were not in good hands. We cannot protect them if you fight me.”

“And killing me isn’t enough reason for me to hate you? You just tried to make me **forget**.”

“You don’t hate me, _lethallin._ You didn’t hate Briala, and you don’t hate me.”

With a snarling cry, the man ran across the room and slammed his fists upon the desk. “If I release you, what will you do? Force me to **forget** myself again?”

Fen’Harel shook his head. “I don’t think I can. The manner of your survival…”

He left the sentence hanging, his mind whirling behind the blank and thoughtful mask. What were Shar… Felassan’s weaknesses? His longing to refine his purpose, to make his actions mean something… _ideals…_

“Help me take the City back,” he urged, his voice sombre. “There is not only death upon this journey.”

Felassan rolled his eyes, clearly disbelieving him. “I think that I preferred when you were silent.”

 

The former master – _former friend,_ _for Mythal’s sake_ – shrugged in response and stared up at the moon. The bonds put on him by Felassan prevented him from moving far, so he sat upright, his elbows resting lightly on the chair arms, assuming the appearance of control if not the actuality of it. As long as the Nightmare demon persisted in the sky as moon and was not chasing them, he could be patient.

Strange that it had gone away so fast.

_Strange that the spirit she called Fen’sulevin has regained these memories. That should have been impossible._

If he asked him how far back he could remember, would he get a truthful answer?

 

“What’s your plan?” he asked, eventually, and stopped himself from adding any further words.

Felassan had conjured up a chair, to sit beside the window looking out. He turned his head to look at Fen’Harel.  “I swore to be her shield. I will not let you consume her.”

“What about Briala?”

“Still in love with her shemlen Empress. Virla asked her about me. Virla said she’d have liked to meet me.”

“Much easier to play the hero than the villain,” he snarled, stung, before he could stop himself.

“You should know,” muttered Felassan. “Honestly, I’m surprised you even lower yourself to debate it.”

 

He couldn’t bring himself to answer that, and changed the subject. “What about the Nightmare?”

The man’s eyes narrowed further. “What about the woman, Fen’Harel?”

_What woman?_

“What do you want to know?” he asked, playing for time. Somewhere in the world outside, birds sang.

“How did she get into Virla’s mind? She freezes time, and I catch only glimpses. Her arrival now was timely.”

_The halla was a woman, then?_

A smile rose to his lips. “Fascinating, isn’t it? To find the Fade is larger than you think, that even in this sundered world new forms of magic can arise.”

“Does this new form have a name?”

“Her name is Caritas. Beyond that… she does not concern you.”

It was an old joke, familiar from the days long-gone, of plotting, plans and silent wars; of agents with their names and networks; and he paused… wondering if Felassan was as lonely as he’d been himself.

“I should have known that she was yours,” came the rejoinder, tinged with bitterness. “I should have known you’d spy upon your lover’s mind. It made me laugh to see the shemlen worshipping their Maker.”

He hadn’t spied on her, but why correct him? Instead, he stated, calmly: “You never told them the truth.”

“I took a vow.”

“So did I, _lethallin_. A different vow. And yet I was about to break it.”

Felassan’s face held sudden realisation. “Until I stopped you…”

“All things have a purpose, _fel’assan_. Mine was not the mouth the arrow shot for.”

 

“The City…” whispered Felassan, glancing at the moon, and just as hurriedly away. “I told Imshael…”

Fen’Harel’s eyes narrowed, and he recited, from Michel: “What could you possibly do that you and I have not seen a hundred times before while the sweaty mortals lusted and grappled and bled their lives away?”

The tattoos on Felassan’s face twisted in remembrance, thorns and flowers blooming on the tree of Mythal.

“You told him that the time was near,” said Fen’Harel, in his own voice, deathly quiet.

“I meant it as a threat! I didn’t know he’d find all that red lyrium!”

His voice was a caress, forgiveness. “I know. The time is near. Don’t say you don’t believe me. Set me free. I’ll keep my vow, and we will take the City. You know that it’s what Mythal would have wanted.”

Tears stood in Felassan’s eyes. He broke the bonds. “You never did believe she loved you.”

_That’s because she didn’t, lethallin._

  



	39. Always sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 7 Harvestmere, 9:44 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set eight days after the previous chapter, and is linked to a part of [Chapter 58](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/17123074) of _Not that kind of wolf_.

He could hear Tallis’ voice. One of the many viddathari he had managed to subvert in the last few years. They were part of the Qun and not a part of it. And as he'd done for Abelas, he hoped she’d find another name. One that might reflect her own uniqueness, not her subjugation.

That Solas had decided she was suitable to act as a companion for his mistress was horribly ironic. She had that trick of apparent obedience, that look of sweet complaisance, that Elvhenan had prized in servants, combined with enough intelligence to make a suitable companion.

_I was Solas first. Fen’Harel came later… an insult I took as a badge of pride._

There were many Tallises and many Stens, but just one Ariqun, one Arishok. And one Dread Wolf among the horde of demons. Although… each Dalish statue differed, as all their stories of him branched and grew.

It was making him think about sex.

Virla’s voice did that, as well – and she was speaking now – and he had tried, through countless centuries, to leave the lust and grappling behind, to think of how the attributes of individuals combined in children, in animals as well as mortals, to comprehend sex as a solution to a problem of divided souls, their pieces striving for the immortality lost to the individual whole. But when faced with her, he’d lusted, and well… grappled her behind.

The way she’d felt against him: yielding, newly cleansed from vallaslin; the way he’d felt his own arousal, hard and strong, and pressed her up against it. The way she’d tasted on his tongue. _In losing her, I lose myself._

It had been new, that feeling of permission she had granted him. He’d forgotten how exciting newness was, how thrilling it would be to have her kiss him physically, to hold her form. To want her, even though he couldn’t; to be torn by strength of feeling. And now he wanted to forget again, but couldn’t. _Every night… for ever?_

“…I hoped that there would be a path where it didn’t have to end in violence,” said Tallis. He sympathised.

“This is a place of peace,” came his own voice, Solas’ voice. “Do not doubt it.”

As much a place of peace as Arlathan had been a place of love… this citadel, Aratishan. That is to say: not at all.

“Doubt is the path one walks to reach faith. To leave the path is… is… to embrace blindness and abandon hope.”

Qunari words. A lie because there was no single way to doubt, no single path; it spread the faith as if it could encompass doubt, and not be swallowed up by it. Yet he had chosen blindness and had chosen Virlath. After Corypheus had died, he’d seen the orb and known he truly loved her. _What we had was real._ He’d lived so long, had hid, dissembled – yes, and lied! – had dreamed so long in darkness… was it still possible, that he might live?

Qunari words, left for him by his twin, his mouthpiece the Ashkaari. He thought of Virla’s obedience to Solas’ calm direction; Tallis following the Qun. His own dark steps. Could anyone escape their circumstances?

 _Apparent obedience,_ Fen’Harel told himself. **_Apparent_** _obedience. Causes matter. She is not wholly gone._

****

Tonight, she was reliving how they’d gone to Crestwood. He was watching as one of the giant statues: a hart, he hoped, because she still remembered where her true heart was. Eighty foot tall, in this memory of hers, with a puffed out chest, proud antlers and a four-foot, rock-hard phallus in between his hind legs. The statue opposite did not appear to be the spirit of his twin, though through the mist he might allow himself that as imagination.

That Falon’Din, that Solas, that twin heart, had spent over ten thousand years beneath the earth, asleep.

The creature he had breathed life into – the spirit Fen’sulevin, with these memories of others, fresh power – was walking with his Virlath, hand in hand, up to the lake, through damp and cold and mist.

The Veil had been thin there, and she’d never known that it had been because of _her_ , the spirits watching.

Watching, as they always watched him, at risk if he should falter, or she prove unable to conclude her duty.

Her recollection wavered as they walked, pressing against the Fade’s constraints with images of what they might have done, they might have felt. This mutable reality, this had been _his_ reality for aeons – he’d seen the other side, as Maryden had sung it. Four thousand years of dreaming in the darkness, never knowing what was true and what was false; or, whether, as at Ostagar, all realities collided. This mutability was Shartan’s, here; another name that was the name of many people; a trickster who could disappear, and reappear in force.

But that way lay madness for her. And so, the marble stag (his one, the Dirthamen who watched, who had been once a Titan, rejected it, who dreamed the other side, awoke, felt real, and knew that she was too) would help her push reality back to the Fade. And from this vantage point, with stony visage, watched his elven form caress her cheek, felt her tremble even in her dream, and heard his own voice – soft through Shartan’s lips – address her quietly, saying, “I was… trying to determine some way to show you what you mean to me.”

“I’m listening,” she said, “and I can offer a few suggestions.”

“I shall bear that in mind,” was what his own recollection said he ought to say, and so he did.

He watched it all unfold, her pain, her happiness, the magic as he took away her vallaslin, and cried a thousand marble tears in memory for her, his selfishness and pride; and more, because he knew what must come next.

Fen’Harel let the thread pass back to his ally; to his rival; the other stag, the one that might have been.

_In another world. In this one, he would never have to say it._

In this one, in this memory, he’d hear someone else say, in his voice: “You are so beautiful.”

He longed to feel her up against him, the way his rival would be able to, the way she felt so good within his memory, the one tormenting him with lust. And if he focused, almost possible to feel it…

He held her tight, he pressed her up against him, felt her arms around his waist, her lips were sweet and warm, and he… would slip his hand under her tunic, gently ease it down inside her belt, to stroke the soft skin of her lower back, caress it with his magic, in her aura, in his aura, magnifying the effects; and feel her moan against his lips and arch her back as he reached lower…

It felt like sacrilege, because he’d not wanted to hurt her; but sacred too, because this was a place of love, and she the path. He laid her down upon the ground (harder to see them from the cold eyes of the stag), undressing her with kisses and his eyes and hands, hardly content now to simply hold her, but wanting to believe…

That _she_ was real. That she was real. That she was _real_.

“You’re real,” he said in wonderment, tickling her exposed neck and breasts and warming them with magic.

She giggled, jerking her head from side to side on the grass as his hands wrestled with and slid into her bindings. Fen’Harel could imagine just how wet she was, for him, like hot slick oil. “And you’re… you’re an ancient elf, like Abelas, but I… I don’t mind, because I know that this will not reduce your lifespan, since you… you…”

His ally was impatient, rapidly unlacing his own breeches… and indeed he could feel the moon, the Nightmare coming. _Go on, fuck her,_ he willed him urgently, and stood on guard, remembering the way he’d turned away.

And watching, with a four-foot, rock-hard phallus, the man who once had been his friend, and his vhenan. Her supple body, pushed against the grass; sobbing out her pleasure as he took her, wantonly stroking, throbbing, gasping, to an exhausted, merry, joyful, loud conclusion.

_In another world, vhenan...! In another world!_

  



	40. The greatest traitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 14 Harvestmere, 9:44 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

He kept remembering that other world, remembering the halla that had shown him it. Caritas, the halla that was not a halla, but a woman. He’d been ignorant of that, and of her name, until Felassan challenged him… and then it had been trivial, to lift that secret from his mind. _Caritas._ A blurry image of a woman with Virlath.

Even those who knew, forgot he was still Dirthamen. But then, who’d see a shadowed raven when a six-eyed wolf was prowling? That had been the point of all the subterfuge, the many masks, deceptions and distractions.

If Caritas were truly from another world – _Tiannovem –_ would she be immune to this? Was Tiannovem’s Fade separate from his own? The images he’d seen were strange. Mysterious, their novelty a fascination… as if from an Orlesian nobleman’s baroque collection, written by a madman. These last two weeks he’d been avoiding thought of them, as if he dared not dwell upon the hope that they conveyed. _What if it were worse?_

In his own Fade he might have succumbed to temptation, to drift back into darkness, to let time’s directions slip away. _Fel’assan melana, the slow arrow of time._ But here, beneath the emerald tree, it lodged within his throat.

Time had separated him from kin and all he knew: from Mythal; Elvhenan; his past. This woman he had learned to love was bound, enslaved by his own deeds. Still living, but unconscious of that life, her will suppressed, she was unable to form memories, to make decisions. Her life fed the world’s life, kept his own self living.

_No going back._

And yet…

 

He’d carried on collecting threads of power, taking images from dreams, a mirror made of gossamer. Felassan had gone elsewhere, looking for inspiration for their night-time trysts. Or so he presumed; they barely talked. Fen’Harel was on his own, a wolf beneath the emerald tree that flourished while she waked. He’d need more power to make a move, ten or twelve times the threads he had, but what he had might be enough to listen…

 

Fen’Harel made himself be Dirthamen, a being clothed in silvered light and shadows. Breathing slowly, he let the subtle quirks and traits fall into place, and faded into the background. He might as well be perching on the tree...

  * _The better to look down on me, I assume?_



His twin’s voice echoed up at him, with that tinge of self-mockery he knew all too well. He hastened to respond, watching as the mirror spread out on the ground. It formed a pool of water, a swirling silver whirlpool.

_I would scarcely presume. Ah! You meant physically._

  * _Is it… safe to talk? I assume that Virla is awake._



Turbulent chaos resolved into steady circular flow, and in the centre he beheld himself, a sleeping elf imprisoned in a translucent orb. The sphere was floating on a sea of lyrium, too vast and perilous to cross.

_Virlath is awake. I do not believe we can be overheard._

  * _Do you have a plan? You always have a plan._



Dirthamen took a breath, and when he spoke, his voice was like a lash of ice, striking the surface of the pool.

_You said you found a path. You told me to help you, to end you. And then, he ambushed me. What was I meant to make of that? The orb was destroyed!_

  * _That ambush was part of the path. Had you not figured that out? Without it, you would not be free to act… and Virla would end up blighted, worse than dead._



Falon’Din’s voice was warm and sorrowful, and he tried not to hate it. They were the same person, torn apart through circumstance and chance, yet only one of them was good.

Sighing, he closed his eyes, and wondered how he might respond. He’d tried to reconstruct the path, but…

  * _Dirth, you read the fresco runes. You know your mind is always open to me. You know that I still live. You know that you must keep the Nightmare chained by keeping both our bodies living, but apart. You know there is another world, within which I might live, I might be free. Help me get there._



_Do you… really think that would work? And if so… are you willing?_

  * _Just once more, Solas. Trust me. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, underground. We both deserve to live. In six months you’ll have the strength to overpower Felassan, but don’t do it. Wait another six months until Virla’s eyes turn gold, as you already told her. You can last a year._



_I can last a year. And then what?_

His voice sank strangely down into the lyrium depths. Deliberately, he contemplated Falon’Din’s suggestion, his head cocked to one side, his eyebrows drawn together. If Virla held all Mythal’s powers, she could lower the Veil, create a portal for the body of his twin to travel through the Fade to Caritas, and, if the plan succeeded, pull the Nightmare with it. Elvhenan could be restored on Thedas, and both the twins could live. But not Felassan.

_Felassan must be sacrified again, then. I wish you had not used that spirit Fen’sulevin as your pawn._

  * _It was **not** my pawn. It chose to accept magic from the mark, and that was how I came to use it as a vessel._



_It did not know the consequences! He does not deserve to be betrayed._

  * _Agreed, and yet he drank. Like Flemeth’s daughter Morrigan, and countless other fools. You know it’s either him or Virla, by this point. But, if it’s Felassan, you and she could bring him back. Or Shartan. Your choice._



It sounded almost bored, and he suppressed the thought that led from that as well, choosing instead to echo it.

_I am tired of making choices, tired of living with them. I can last a year._

  * _I am pleased to hear it. I have missed you, Dirth. This way we can both be Solas._



_True._

 

After that conversation, Fen’Harel allowed himself to think more of Tiannovem, the new world that he’d lead his brother to. A world without magic sounded strange, to one who’d been submersed in it for aeons. He let himself imagine the absence of Blight, the consequent draining of the Nightmare demon’s power, and how, one day, compassion might return. He thought of eyes turned gold, the beauty of a painting and a person.

_We few who travel far, call to me and I will come. Without mercy, without fear. Cry havoc in the moonlight, let the fire of vengeance burn, the cause is clear._

Mythal had never thought much of compassion.

 

Solas had never thought so much of moonlight, or been so afraid.

  



	41. Keep guard all night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: Wintersend, 1 Guardian, 9:45 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

The months of Umbralis, Cassus and Verimensis had passed. Fen’Harel noted the end of winter with a dulled anticipation. It was the first of Pluitanis, the month of rains, the month the southern realms called Guardian. Another **eight** months of this, he thought as loudly as he could, and visualised it as a cube of two times two times two. Pluitanis then Nubulis then…

Virlath’s birthday fell in Pluitanis. She’d turn twenty-three, although he doubted she would recognise the day, or have anyone but him to celebrate it. She looked happy enough, lying back on her Skyhold bed, dressed in white, her cheeks flushed in the candlelight. Felassan lay beside her, and his hands – his own hands, and Falon’Din’s – drifted across her waist to pull her closer for a kiss.  

He ought to have reconciled himself to this, he told himself. But in this form, so closely tied to memory and emotion, it was hard to persevere with logic. And harder still, because he’d found he was not envious, but awed.

Awed, because Felassan had stayed within the bounds of duty, had taken on his form – and taken her – with solemn reverence. Acting a part, and yet not acting: he had been Fen’sulevin; he had sworn to protect Virlath.

Awed, because he’d seen full evidence of Virlath’s love: the multiplicity of scenes found by Felassan in her mind that showed how hard she’d striven to imagine what it must be like for him, and how he might find peace.

It was a grace entirely undeserved by either of them. He turned away and stared out of the window at the stars.

 

  * _Either of you?_



_Either of **us**. I know you’re listening._

  * _You must be truly lonely, if you’re willing to consider us as **us**._



_It has been a long time. Perhaps… the brothers should not fight._

  * _I seem to recall that Cole thought it was because their father didn’t teach them to talk._



_It was far worse than Cole imagined. I kept him out of my mind as best I could. Compassion is fragile._

  * _Yes, we know. It cannot survive the pride and rage of Elgar’nan, unleashed._



_I have fought to see the other side. I will try to talk._

  * _You know I’m always listening._



_Indeed. What has it been like for you, all these years?_

  * _I thought you’d never ask._



_The horror in the heroism does not normally diminish for being shared._

  * _We do not lightly trouble others with our pain. It has been… lonely. The dwarves wrote on their walls, and I have followed what transpires within the thaigs for aeons now, through constant blight and war._



_When the orb fell from the sky, and broke, I thought…_

  * _You thought that that was lost, that no-one could recall the glory of the sun beneath the Stone._



The voice was cool and calm. Too calm. Fen’Harel paused and steeled himself before responding.

_Yes. I thought you were dead._

  * _In fact I was awake, and had been since the Breach was torn across the Veil._



_Allowing you to hear my thoughts._

  * _And feel your pain. As you are well aware. I wish you had not deserted my rival._



_Rival? Virla?_

  * _An anagram, as you are well aware. Somewhere, Caritas is laughing. I am looking forward to that world._



_You long to be free from stone and lyrium?_

  * _Wouldn’t you?_



_Why did you wish I had not deserted Virlath?_

  * _Call her Virla, if you love her. That is what she calls herself._



_Ar lath, arla, Virlath, virla. I would not bind her to that shortening. I desired that she might follow love._

  * _She did._



_I should not have let her. I should not have let myself…_

_Wait. Why is she your rival?_

His thought echoed countless seconds into the abyss that framed the sky, before the silent laughter fell like arrows, followed by a caustic taunt, obliterating Solas’ faint connection with his twin.

  * _You never deceived me, Fen’Harel. I know that you’ll betray me for her. Shame there will be nothing left._



 

The Nightmare! Contrary to what it said, this meant Virlath was aware that she was **not** aware. Somewhere in her mind she still could see that she was dreaming, still perceive the gaps, the oddities. The thought tore at his heart, and he span round to see Felassan’s anguished glance at him, the mirror of his own.

He shaped the Fade and pulled them all away from Skyhold, hurling them towards the Void, to give Felassan precious seconds to re-form a dream.

 _Not Haven again,_ he thought, despairing, as Virlath’s lips were surrendered once more to his likeness, all eyes bar his own unseeing the full moon that beamed so brightly. The full moon that was not a moon, but nightmare.

 

He ran in, a wolf this time, and growled to make them jump apart, and howled up at the moon.

Felassan looked. His eyes grew wide with fear. “Assist me, Fen’Harel!” he cried. “The Nightmare is upon us.”

There was no alternative. He would have to shift into an elf, and see if between them they could conjure up a new part of the Fade. As he shifted, holding Virla’s gaze, she reached out a hand to stroke his face, and…

…her hand encountered quite another part of him, brushing up against his loins. The slight touch overcame him.

“Two of you?” she whispered, with a sharp intake of breath, as quick as the Fade that flowed around them.

 

 _Her dream._ It could not be against the Rules that he might kiss her. Not against the Rules although they both were naked, and Felassan – with the same lean figure – stood behind, ready to resume whatever must be done.

And yet it hurt, it hurt and hurt. _Brother, see my thoughts, and feel my pain._

  



	42. And remember perfectly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: Wintersend, 1 Guardian, 9:45 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

He drew back from the kiss and found himself in Haven, with a spirit sitting in the waving fronds of bushes and this woman once again in front of him. _This woman, this miracle._

“We should,” she said, still smiling up at him. “Don’t say we shouldn’t, for you know we should.”

“You won’t remember this,” said Fen’Harel, who wore his old apostate clothes again.

“I might,” said Virlath Al’var Lavellan, her cheeks turned rose-pink in the cold, her eyes aflame. “I know enough to know my memories are incomplete. To wonder which twin’s which, and why you both need to be here.”

“It isn’t right,” he said. He glanced across to where Felassan – _Shartan, as he once was_ – seemed content for now to let him fight the Nightmare in his own way, with her desire to talk. Almost possible to imagine him carving careful markings in his bow, a whittling stone in one hand and the polished wood resting on his knee.

“Not even here? But where is here? How did the Fade come into being?”

“A good question. The better one is how us beings came into the Fade.”

Virlath took his hand and squeezed it gently. They began to walk round to the cabin she had slept in as the Herald of Andraste. This Haven had been a memory the first time, and this second time was overlain with memories of both reality and Fade, of real snow and the memory of trees, the memory of Sophiyel.

“What does it feel like, Solas?”

“I’m not S... sure what you mean,” he said, and tried to keep his face impassive as she raised an eyebrow at him. _I’m not Solas, I’m not Solas. I cannot be Pride, not here._

“Being you. Being in the Fade. Having slept for thousands of years. Being here with me.”

 _Thousands of years._ “I miss Sophiyel,” he found himself saying, regardless of any tact, of how it might make this one feel. “It was here, the first time that we kissed. I never told you that. I was… embarrassed.”

“You never spoke about Sophiyel. Would you like to?”

He glanced up at the sky, as if the Breach that howled too loud in memory might give birth to the Nightmare.

He looked down at Virlath, as if desire that raged too fierce within him might give birth to a new rift on its own.

  * _So many nights to go before you’ll take back Solas’ body, where he sleeps with arms around her. Imagine how good it will feel to fuck her. She’ll let you, like the wolf you truly are: you’ve seen her dreams. Why wait?_



She didn’t know how truly he’d been called a predator. She couldn’t know; she’d disbelieved the legends.

Virlath pushed open the door of her cabin. She sat down by the fire and patted a space beside her on the rug.

Fen’Harel sat down, invited by the Dalish woman to her inner sanctum, no longer the wolf compelled to look away but real and flesh and blood, her own. Still he kept a careful distance, and he watched her stoke the embers. _Unite the heart with the flame. Take care of the world I turned to ashes._

It must **not** be turned to ashes. Fen’sulevin was a spirit – just a boy – and Fen’Harel must take control. Must feed her desire and keep himself from pride. To court her… surely that might be within the Rules. Court her, yet let Fen’sulevin consummate that courtship, come with carolling cries, his cock in her cunt? _I must._

He made his own face soften; felt his heart harden. “Would you like to hear me talk about Sophiyel?”

“I love to hear you talk,” she said, and seemed so much in earnest that he scarcely could believe the last four months – three years – had happened. Her innocence and sweetness were no lie, but still… how could she have lain with Solas, lain with Felassan, even those few things she’d done with him… and not be corrupted?

  * _Too much time playing with spirits, fade-walker. This one’s actually real. It doesn’t hurt her to have sex._



He ignored the voice. It wasn’t the sex that hurt her, but the lying. _I would not lay with you…_

  * _Unless you want it to, of course. But we both know that would be beneath you. Her beneath you, though…_



And yet… without the discipline of _watching_ her, accustoming himself to these new rules, would he have managed even this conversation, to open up a temporary reprieve? She would not remember it, but he would.

They sat and watched the embers, and he told her how he’d spoken to Sophiyel, had shown her how he’d kissed a Dalish woman in the Fade. The lines of vallaslin were clear to him upon her face, and though she couldn’t see them he saw Virlath put a hand up to her cheek. Emerald ink of Mythal’s vallaslin, two swirls upon her cheekbones. He had been a prince and he’d had slaves. Sophiyel had never been enslaved until she fell.

 _Did you solve my anagram, ‘ma taren’ara?_ _I hope a star may learn. I did not fear that star would fall._

“Stars can’t learn,” he said. “Spirits are stars, or so we might perceive them from afar: a brightness, with your mark the sun. Time is different for them. The way they call on magic differs.”

“Beings for whom magic is as natural as breathing.”

“Wrench them from their purpose and they die. Rather, they become corrupted, doomed to misunderstand.”

Virlath took her hand away from her cheek, showed him both her hands. “What is my purpose, Solas?”

“You are not a spirit. You are real…” _…except the heart and hand and mind that I destroyed._

She sighed. “Spirits are also real. But where the world’s a rainbow, each one must adhere to its own colour.”

“A restricted life. Sophiyel’s death… was my fault. I’m the one who tempted it. It died because she wanted to reach me. Or because… it wanted to teach me a lesson, I’m not sure. Cole might know. I dared not ask.”

Crimson light lit Virlath’s face as she inched closer. She looked pensive, an expression that made his heart burn. “From the archivists you let me meet in Vir Dirthara, a great many deaths were your fault.”

He turned his head away, and stared the fire out. “Every alternative was worse.”

“What if Sophiyel felt the same?”

Glowing red brightness suffused every wall. He could feel himself begin to sweat. “Sophiyel should not have been allowed to feel! Many alternatives were better! I let myself become distracted! I am weak!”

Her whisper was inevitable, and foolish. “Solas…”

On the burnt-out grass at Enavuris and she’d stopped his hand again, before he burnt the cabin out, and Fen’sulevin. Stalked away, he wolf and rage combined, with language eating out his heart, and grief, and lust.

  * _You are weak!_



_That’s why I leave the love affairs to others._

He regretted the facile response as soon as he had thought it; turned around. Virlath was smiling up at Shartan-Fen’sulevin, mind wiped of their conversation, he the Solas who had stayed to thank her for her kind assistance. Brazenly he toyed with her top button, her blush deepening quite prettily. Fen’Harel could scarcely master rage.

  



	43. Not through derived power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 30 Drakonis, 9:45 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

His hands slid along the faded memories, following Virlath within her dreams. Always on the boundaries of the Fade, where it lay most closely intermingled with reality – there was where the power could be found.

Found, and regained; remastered, rewoven. And as he lifted silken silver thread, it spoke:

  * _May the path bestow the favour you have earned._



The slow deep voice had not disturbed his thoughts for several weeks. It sounded almost wistful, like a blessing. Fen’Harel looked at his feet, as if they trod the stones of Solasan and not the mossy earth of Virlath’s childhood forests. Those veilfire words in Solasan had been intended by his friends, he presumed, to comfort him on waking. Instead they’d felt like mockery. He’d earned no favours. He was owed no love. And now…

_I cannot walk your path, falon. With this thread I have the strength to break Felassan’s hold on Virlath._

  * _And if you wait, then Virlath will be strong enough to break his hold herself, and reign as Mythal._



_You were truly named. Mythal is **dead** , Falon! The world moved on. I will not crush it. _

  * _Then it will crush you._



He walked on, careful to avoid the thorns and nettles. Her dreams had always been exquisite in their details, and were growing sharper: any cuts or stings would hurt. Though all hurts paled in comparison with the knowledge of what he must – _no, had decided to! –_ do next. Dirthamen sighed, before he spoke. Not betrayal. This was…

 

_With Felassan’s help and with the Sentinels’, I will defeat the Nightmare and release you._

  * _They still serve Mythal. They’ll turn on you. They are not free!_



_Is that what you’ve read within their minds?_

The pause before the answer told him everything he needed to know. These ardent blossom were beautiful.

 

  * _Would it have hurt you to have had faith in me?_



_That is **not** an answer, so let me give yours. You **cannot** read their minds, not any more. _

  * _Let Virlath take the Veil down, save the People!_



_No, the Nightmare had it right. There will be nothing left of her, if I do that._

  * _You’d trust the ravings of that demon over me?!_



_Fear is a surer guide than Pride. And no, I do not trust it either._

  * _You trust a shemlen child, and not your kin? The People swore their lives to me! Are you not one of them?_



_You know that I am not. And, yet, they are my people. All those that remain, are mine._

  * _Are you sure of that? Felassan weakens, yet he would last longer._



Dirthamen glanced across to where Felassan crouched, a white wolf watching Virlath. Soon he would approach her, in satisfaction of her desire to have him near, to have him leave his fear and come to her. Had she noticed that that wolf no longer matched her memories? Could she perceive the quickening of each interlude of passion, the background and the foreground blurred? Falon’Din’s perceptions were corrupted too.

 

  * _You believe you are the only one who still sees truly._



_No, I don’t. You are still my brother. Yet the Nightmare has corrupted you. The runes you left for Virlath do not change. In those you warned us all of certainty, you told us we should make some space for doubt. And I agreed._

  * _This is not the time for logic! Dirthamen, believe in ME! I found the path!_



_I believe that you believe that, now. But I am not a spirit of faith, and I have left my pride with Solas._

  * _You still desire to be right._



_It’s not about right or wrong. This is my decision. I must make it in my own way, weighing up the consequences._

  * _Lyrium does not change its colour in the middle of a branch, nor does a tree change its fruit, Pride._



_Decisions matter, Falon! I raised the Veil. I brought down Elvhenan! That was **my** choice. I can hear them dying!_

  * _And immortal slavery was better, Dirth? You held all their secrets. You **know** that it wasn’t! You didn’t do it to be right. You did it to save them!_



 

Once, he would have responded, as he had to Cole, saying that he would never know that for sure. And now? He watched Felassan stalk across to Virlath, and saw her run her hands into his fur, smiling into wise blue eyes and laughing as he nudged her nose with his.

Neither of them knew this was their last time.

Although Felassan surely did suspect it, he was far too old and wise to dwell on it in thought, and he had served in many wars. A soldier to the end, he’d recognise the privilege of duty.

But Virlath… this would hurt her. To know that she had been his dupe, to know that she had been possessed… and then to work with him, to fight, to be alone, to raise the Inquisition, kill him? He knew she could do it, through her own strength and through Mythal’s soul.

She would have her world.

She would cure the Blight.

But would it be enough? Could she walk away from power’s corrupting lures, without him?

Perhaps she’d find it easier, without him.

 

_I will not take pride in my ability to recognise the truth. Every alternative **was** worse. I wanted to save them. I wanted to be right. Those two truths interwoven, a decision made… _

  * _The same is true right now. You want to save the people of this sundered world. You want to believe it’s right. It’s not. You ought to wait. You ought to let Virlath take down the Veil, have paradise regained._



_There is no **ought**. I will not lay aside the knowledge that one choice eliminates the others. _

  * _Then I wish you luck, for you will need it. Dareth shiral, ‘ma Dirth, ‘ma Fen, ‘ma Solas._



_Dareth shiral, ‘ma falon._

  



	44. The phantoms behind me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 30 Drakonis, 9:45 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

He’d listened to the last unchanging morning, to the sounds of Solas waking, arms around Virlath, to her light breathing as she woke, as he disentangled himself from around her. Until Solas spoke, Fen’Harel could close his eyes and imagine how she felt within his arms: his cheek laid against her rich red hair, her back flush against his chest. He could imagine she was truly his, that he was truly hers.

He could imagine all those things, but would not.

Next morning would be different. He would waken.

Everything would be **real**.

****

Evening now, and the time of trial drew closer. He’d been kneeling upon the ground beside her tree for hours. A vigil to strengthen his mind and steel his heart, to rid himself of all distractions – red hair, weakness, fear – that might impair his focus and his magic. Thousands of years of past and future hung on these next hours.

_Cause and effect. Wisdom as its own reward, and the inherent right of all free willed people to exist._

The words, repeated too often over centuries of war, had sometimes seemed to lose their meaning. But, tonight, each word hung golden, as if in mosaic form, or carved into a mural. Existing, if not living; out of time.

Sensing a disturbance in the Fade, he opened his eyes. Felassan stood, outlined against the clear blue sky drawn out of Virlath’s memories. He had resumed his own form, and though his face was shadowed, Mythal’s vallaslin were dark upon his face. Glandivalis – or the memory of it – was slung across his back.

Felassan did not kneel.

For a moment Fen’Harel saw himself as traitor: condemned to be beheaded by his kin. But Felassan made no attempt to reach for his sword, and there were no secrets in his soul, and little guile. Only a spirit of purpose, interposing himself between a woman and a wolf he’d thought might hurt her. He had forgotten Caritas.

A slow arrow. A wolf of purpose. _Fen’sulevin._

 

“I do not want to hurt her,” said Fen’sulevin, forming the elven words with the appropriate tones of sincerity and firmness. “Her love for you is strong. Tonight, you will shine brighter. It is time.”

Fen’Harel stood up, sorrow like heavy armour on him. “Is not your desire to protect her from me?”

“I am sworn to protect her. When you first arrived, I believed you meant to do her harm. You meant to take her, seeing her as symbol of those other women you had spurned throughout the years. You did not see her as _her_.”

Fen’Harel remembered the flame, the light, the lava, how he’d summoned the **forget**.

He frowned, at other memories. Of elvhen women kneeling, beautiful and naked: smiling, hoping, serving on his pleasure. “I did not spurn those women. I did not spurn Andraste. Yet I did not lie with them. I had taken a vow.”

“You never told them that,” said Fen’sulevin, sighing.

“No,” said Fen’Harel, looking away. _I told Sophiyel._ “No, I did not tell them that. They needed hope.”

A long pause followed. The old wolf watched his youngest kinsman intently, watched him square his shoulders, take the burden. “Yes, my lord. I know. From that hope bred faith, and from that faith sprang love.”

“I do not deserve her,” he said, too quickly. The thought of her was painful _. Grass at Enavuris_. _Solas…_

“Yes, you do,” insisted Fen’sulevin. “It is not pride, to think of winning, when your intentions are good. We both know it is time. And if we live, then we will still remember those who died. And if we die, we go down fighting.”

Fen’Harel inclined his head, his hands unseen and tightly clenched behind his back. The passage of the days had left the traces of the mornings in the air: the tenderness that Solas showed Virlath were birds within the branches of the tree. The scents were of the afternoons: the fragrance of the garden. Sounds of chess… and silent conversation.

“I am ready,” continued the spirit. “It is pointless putting it off any longer. Countless shemlen died to darkspawn. I am of the last of the elvhen. In submitting to my fate I do so gladly.”

“Gladly?” he asked, with a bitter smile. “I would not have you take upon this burden with your eyes closed.”

Fen’sulevin’s expression remained serious, and he gestured up at the tree. “All things have a purpose, Fen’Harel. In this life I accepted mine from her. Felassan could not help Briala. Shartan could not save Andraste.”

“Why then hope to save Virlath?”

“She showed you they were people, that she was a person. When you first arrived, you had forgotten that.”

“It is not that simple,” said Fen’Harel, trying to relax his hands. _Burnished auburn hair, running through my fingers. Soft grey-violet eyes, that now shine silver. One arm round him, where there once were two._

“I know,” said Fen’sulevin. His eyes shone green with fervour. “You fear we will be overheard by the Nightmare. That is why we do not talk. I do remember some of your lessons, even after all these years.”

“This is why we could not talk until tonight,” he said, echoing the phrases to gain time. “By talking to me, you have made it impossible for me to change my course.”

“Not impossible.”

“Unwise and irresponsible,” countered Fen'Harel, then added: “…and ridiculous.”

“Not ridiculous,” insisted the spirit, holding its hands out to him. “No-one is judging you.”

His laugh was hollow in response. “Many did, and do. But only I can truly judge myself, and so I must.”

“But if it’s the only way to cleanse the Fade, the only way to save the People…?”

“Then I will not forget the sacrifices that have brought salvation. I once said Virlath was the key. I hope she is.”

Fen’Harel took a breath, accepting the inevitable. _Cause and effect._ He should explain more fully, taking care, aware that every word would both strengthen his interlocutor’s resolve and give more food for the Nightmare.

“If I die, _lethallin,_ the seven times seventy men of stone immense – my erstwhile guardians – will rise from every land, like Drakon once foretold. Unstoppable, though countless mortals die to stop them. The Veil will tear apart and all will burn, and everyone will know it is my hand – my claw! – that breeds corruption."

“And if you live?”

“I do not know. It seems that I have died five times before. But that was before the destruction of the orb.”

“You asked me for my aid. You said we would take the City!”

“I asked you to help me take it **back**. It may be that we cannot take it forward. This world needs a moon to swell the tides and light the night-time. Even if it sunders from the Fade. Obviously, I would prefer it didn’t.”

Fen’sulevin looked shocked, stepping back a pace. Fen’Harel watched him swallow the realisation that his lord might sacrifice his kin for shemlen, a sudden wildness in his eyes. His voice quavered: “For Andraste, then?”

“For Andraste, if you will it, Shartan,” said the one who had been called the Trickster and the Maker; liar, fool and madman. “I am not intent on vengeance. Moonlight brings the havoc, _lethallin._ But the dawn **will** come.”

  



	45. The horrors of fratricidal war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 1 Cloudreach, 9:45 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is linked to the end of [Chapter 58](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/17123074) of _Not that kind of wolf_ , and the first half of [Chapter 59](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/17351920).

_Twas but a memory of light, since it was overcast that night…_

He couldn’t shift the melody from his mind, the haunting descant of a woman. Even in this disconnection from reality, he’d kept track of the calendar: a bulwark to remind him he was not a spirit. _Eluviesta first, 8444 FA._ To put the dead weight of the moon’s lament – Mythal’s very soul! – upon this slight young woman… it was reckless beyond believing. Even with his magic in her: language, blood and fire, and love… could she? Would she?

And yet, it was the only plan he had. He could not allow her to be eaten up. He could not allow the Nightmare to invade another world, however well-meaning the halla at its gateway. This world **must** be cleansed.

Fen’Harel was painting near where she sat, dreaming of a sunset by Lake Calenhad, Solas by her side to watch it. He’d watched them enjoy a blissful night of pleasure: his last, as well as theirs; and honoured Felassan for his ability to follow orders, even those unspoken. The Nightmare would be weakest just before the dawn.

Over their heads, to the memory of north, lay Orzammar and Kinloch Hold; behind him lay the Wilds. He doubted he could reach below to Orzammar, but Kinloch Hold had stood for centuries, long before the Circle made it hell. The Veil was thin there; he could draw upon its magic, on latent power that had suffused its stones.

The moon rose high into the sky, biding its time. He watched as Shartan said goodbye to the Herald of his Andraste, then drew upon the memories of power, walking out upon the water. It was the trigger for Fen’Harel to sever the spirit’s compulsion to Virlath’s mind, and he did so silently. One swift slash of violet paint upon the wall of an abandoned house, and Virlath staggered to her feet, simultaneously free and violated.

Her pain and rage were real and raw. Futile to hope that she’d forgive him that it might have been much worse. The dream she’d built was collapsing around her, cracking and splintering. He’d seen her certainty waver many times before, unsure which of them were Solas, and in those cracks of doubt would grow the true face of the Nightmare. He could see it as she saw it, as she struggled to her feet – a memory of a massive, bug-eyed spider.

Shartan strode out, one hand holding Glandivalis high, the other blazing fire. He scowled up at the moon’s eyes, the dripping maw, the massive spiny legs, and taunted it. Fen’Harel was filled with a vast revulsion, which did not lessen as he listened to the sound of Virlath’s screaming. Normally in the Fade, he saw his own dark twin, a blighted emptiness that yawned with horror. This was the hideous monster of the abyss, a cesspit of fears.

He must not take the Dread Wolf form, and risk her turning on him. He had to face his fears and fight himself.

Most likely, he would die, and **nobody** would realise.

He was _terrified._

The monster gaped, and Felassan briefly glowed within its mouth, a sharp barbed violet arrow of a man. Fen’Harel felt the energy rebound as surely as if he’d shot the bow himself, the ground shaking beneath him. He let the fury of this necessary death flow into him: his man, his agent, his friend. His decision.

And if he wanted, now, he could control Virlath, and that temptation terrified him more.

After all the times he’d walked away, this time he was moving to her, swift as thought across the air, carrying the storm inside and with him. A barrier around them both, a massive pulse of force to throw the Nightmare back, a thread to pull them north to Kinloch Hold, and they were standing side by side upon its tower roof.

She’d seen him, but she’d turned away. Would she think he was a demon? How would she know he was not?

Flashes of green and purple lit her face as she screamed at the storm: “You lied to me! I loved you!”

It was what she’d said to him, when he’d last seen her in body, but now she flung it at the Void, to where the Nightmare was greedily consuming all the power of that demon of desire, the demon Fen’sulevin had become.

Fen’Harel clenched his hands behind him. Felassan deserved his tribute, and Virlath his apologies.

Quietly, he spoke: “He kept the Nightmare from the world. From you. I’m sorry that it hurts. I’m sorry we deceived you, Virlath. It was... necessary.”

His voice broke on the last word, hating all those necessaries, hating all the calculations that had deemed them so. For a moment his barrier weakened, and he felt the Nightmare turn its dark attention to them, and other demons circle. At the same time Virlath turned to him, her sorrow burning into anger, fire at her fingertips.

“An idea in my mind,” she spat at him. “A complex, awkward kind of man. Immortal, possibly a god. Indefinite, and ill-defined. And yet… so very definite in his ideas, opinions, aims and goals. I _loved_ him.”

He flinched, thinking fast. The Nightmare would feed on her rage. She was real, more real than him, and she would be the target. He tried to persuade her, to mollify her, as the Nightmare’s darker, blacker shadow lurched across the sky. Somewhere lost in it was what had once been his compassion, his companion… Falon’Din.

And Falon’Din had said… _Call her Virla, if you love her._

“This isn’t the place to get angry, Virla,” he said, swallowing. “I can’t maintain this barrier unless you help me.”

“You never called me Virla. So that proves you are a demon.”

She hadn’t tried to burn him yet, so he replied: “Or implies the opposite. Demons rarely change their tactics.”

“Rarely, not never. You would no doubt be the exception,” snapped Mythal. Her eyes shone like mercury, beautiful and deadly, and she spoke in ancient elven. _“You betrayed me, traitor! My eyes must be gold!”_

He stammered, closing his own eyes against the double sight. “You have every right to be angry… I meant to see this through. I meant to. But, but I… can’t make you do this. If I do, then everything I worked for, everything I’ve cared about…” He stopped short, belatedly recognising the voice as one of the Nightmare’s manipulations.

But Virlath… Virla… was continuing, and she was just as ferocious. “Still proud, _Solas_? Did all your agents serve willingly? Did they all know what they were doing, all the time? Or is this just another hopeless battle?”

The threads connecting him to Solas in Aratishan were jangling, and other threads were signalling the deaths of elvhen soldiers. Orders written down, not said? It seemed the only explanation. Above him he could feel the Nightmare feeding, temporarily distracted as it ate their lives, their duties. “Submit!” it screamed at them.

He didn’t have time to convince Virla with words, just looked at her, and hoped. Force rained upon the barrier, and he was startled – and relieved – to find that she had spread her own below his. At some point soon the Nightmare would stop casting and simply fall upon the barrier, like a dead weight moon might fall to earth…

He could see that moment coming now. Swallowing his fear again, he grabbed her round the waist and clamped her right hand in his own, yelling: “Your spirit sword. Quick, raise your other hand!”

Lightning sparked from earth to heaven to strike the Nightmare’s heart. Somewhere in there, it had eaten through the layers of Shartan and Felassan. Fen’sulevin’s voice called out: “Never again! I **will** protect her!”

Fen’Harel clutched her as the demon shrieked in agony, power still streaming upwards from her sword. He could feel her heart pounding, knew that Solas held her in her sleep as well. He stared up in shock as the demon changed form like one forbidden. The anchor’s magic had infused her soul, and Fen’sulevin’s desire to protect was growing in the Nightmare like a violet infection. It had eaten memories of her and him. There was nothing to fear in those. The only emotion that they might provoke was… **Envy**. “Envy...?”

It reached for her, with all four slimy arms. He didn’t even think, but stepped in front, and felt it **touch** him.

In the flash of a baleful blinded eye, he was no longer **split**. And Solas woke.

  



	46. Hardly know who I am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 1 Cloudreach, 9:45 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is linked to [Chapter 59](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/17351920) of _Not that kind of wolf_.

Solas woke, and for a horrifying second his mind was an echoing void. Blackness where all memories had been, his arms around an unfamiliar fair-haired woman.

Simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar – as if this version was a dream, and not the real one.

He blinked in shock, and for a moment saw her hair bright red, pushed her away from…

_I’m me. I’m me. I’m me again._

Eyes open, he was standing by the bed, the world turned over. Something had changed within him, something critical, doubled memories entwining. She was stirring in her sleep, rolling over as if to check he was still…

She had one arm, silver sleeve flapping loose where left arm would have been. He began to feel sick.

Her legs were bare, and he remembered nights and nights of watching – _someone else, now dead –_ caress those legs, and days and days of feeling without feeling, of her upon the floor to give him pleasure. Except that there had been no pleasure, only warmth. Nausea. His head spun. He’d felt the weight of her perfect breasts in his hands, knew exactly how her back glistened, smeared with oil, how she had smiled and gasped and…

He dragged his eyes up to her face, her strange fair hair, her lips. She was… she was…

She was Virla, and he loved her.

****

She was saying something, saying his name. He didn’t remember how he’d got down on the floor, or how she’d got an arm around him. She was stroking his shoulder. He wanted to forget it all, forget how he’d betrayed his allies, betrayed even Abelas, using sorrow for his own ends, forget how he had failed to save his brother, forget the oil and sweat and sex, kisses desperate and mechanical, forget the pain he’d seen within her eyes.

The pain he’d not acknowledged, for he could not comprehend it.

_That was not me. That was not me. I should not remember this. I thought I would not remember this._

That pain was his. Two hundred mornings of fever, two hundred mornings of exquisite pain relief. He felt his cock stiffening, remembered the gentle parting of her lips, the way she’d felt around his fingers, tight and damp with liquid magic, and knew he had to spend himself within her. Knew he could not.

 “…don’t be afraid,” she finished, then fell silent: his bride he was not married to, his whore he couldn’t fuck.

He could hear the thunder, didn’t dare close his eyes or open them. Head resting on his arms, arms wrapped tight around his own bare knees. Staring blindly at naked thighs, nightshirt tented white and hard between his legs, deafened by his feelings. Remembering separate memories of the same event, a ferocious rage at the sheer slick stupid unfairness of it all, the orders written. Different events, like the time she’d had to escape from those Tevinter slavers. The part of him that had known hadn’t cared. The part that had cared hadn’t known.

Now he was screaming. Inside, outside. She was singing, light between the thunderclouds, and real.

And real, and real, and real, and his. Calling him home with words he’d sung to her, a melody he’d known before he’d founded Arlathan, before all the mistakes, before he’d lost them. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

_Tel’enfenim, da’len. Irassal ma ghilas. Ma garas mir renan. Ara ma’athlan vhenas. Ara ma’athlan vhenas._

The thought of Arlathan, and all the People, was making him weep. But this was old pain, understood and gone. He pushed the thunderclouds away, suppressed his lust. She was alive, she was **alive** , and…

…and there was still **no time**. His legs were wet with tears, and he was shaking. Her hand gripped his shoulder.

He had to get control of himself. He couldn’t stay awake forever, couldn’t beat the Nightmare in the…

_Envy. It is Envy now. The Fade isn’t big enough. The Fade isn’t big enough. It’s going to get you. Going to get you. She’ll have to kill you. Kill you, kill you, kill herself, kill everyone._

He forced himself to focus on the seventh repetition of the lullaby and not on his own terror. He looked up and saw dark grey fog outside, a unnatural natural phenomenon, wards to hide Aratishan from view. He laid his head against the bed and did not close his eyes. Every time he closed his eyes he could see Envy… or her body.

“I am… g… glad… to see you still…” he whispered, then burst into tears again.

She pulled him into her arms – no, her arm! The other he’d as good as torn off – and what good did his power do him, but make him a target also?

“Solas,” said Virla, and the urgency in her voice stabbed through him, “…won’t the Nightmare come back for you? For your power.”

Shuddering, he nodded, grabbing her around the waist for comfort. Could he pull them both into another world, somehow through the Crossroads? This Fade was too small. They had to get out of here. A giant claustrophobia oppressed him, he was too big for this world, they’d painted him flat, a mural on a wall but he was real.

His arms were still around her waist. She had taken hers away. “Solas,” she said, no longer urgent but imperious. _Inquisitor,_ he thought. “We must get down to the Deep Roads. We need lyrium.”

She must be thinking they could fight it in the Fade, get an army into the Fade. “We c… can’t fight the N… Nightmare d… directly,” he stammered. _Everyone_ would die _._ “It’s t… too powerful. The horror…”

She shook her head, frustrated. With Felassan’s influence shattered, her indomitable focus appeared to have coalesced immediately and brilliantly. He wished his own mind were as clear, and instantaneously remembered that it had been. Clear, and cold as ice, but dead.

He hadn’t been listening to the words. Something about spring. “S… spring follows w… winter,” he said, letting out a grim chuckle. She was hauling him to his feet, glaring furiously at him, thinning those… remarkable lips.

“I am not your Keeper, Dread Wolf,” said Virla, silver eyes sparkling with anger. He remembered how the Dalish had rejected him, how she might still reject him. It was her choice. “This is your fight.”

Her choice, his fight. “No real g… god need prove himself,” he said, finally placing what she’d quoted back at him. That time in Villa Maurel. _Gods, and I once thought I loved her then._

Again she hadn’t tried to burn him. He’d lied to her, and lusted, used her, been a selfish fool, and still she was here, offering comfort, trying to make him a better man, trying to make him real.

If he told her all would she desert him? Her army was outside – Sera and Tallis and Jester and many others, silently recording what he’d done. Half of them believed what Tallis said: the prisoner was happy. Half did not, yet feared him. Some had pelted him with fruit. How he had not turned a single one of them to stone perplexed him. But he had not. He’d walked within a barrier, as impervious to figs and mouldy pears as to their insults.

He closed his eyes and breathed. The orders he had written had protected them.

_Maybe I am not so bad._

He opened his eyes and straightened up, as tall as his own name. “We should get our armour on,” he said.

  



	47. It flings my likeness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 1 Cloudreach, 9:45 Dragon  
> CLT: _H4 tracking, sector 01-AE2979, status: intermittent_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Linked to [Chapter 59](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/17351920) and [Chapter 60](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4875835/chapters/17420317) of _Not that kind of wolf_ , which have more of the conversations and interactions between Virla and Solas.

As he’d secured each piece of armour on, he had felt it scratching, searching, seeking. Like an itch behind his eyelids, as if the Fade were his to see by day, and it was filled with Nightmare. Seen in silver-mirrored flashes, the horror of himself. _Solas, won’t the Nightmare come back for you, for your power?_

It had been watching him for centuries, copying and curating him, looking for the locus of control.

In the pre-Veil world, or if he’d made a post-Veil one, that process was entirely natural. Powerful spirits attracted lesser ones, those that now were wisps and wraiths. The lesser took on the stronger’s characteristics, eventually resulting in a spiritual fission. Despair bred more despair, compassion begat compassion.

Envy had learned the trick of moulding substance from the Veil into a body, to form a Shade where there were no live forms to copy, then prey upon the living, sowing confusion and horror in its wake.

But this particular demon was tied to him, would copy him, would eat him from the inside out. Every time he closed his eyes he knew that it crept nearer. Solas had stroked the fine mail of the golden-fingered gauntlets, sighed, and grasped one slender metal wrist within each hand. He’d known he couldn’t put them on, not yet.

Not if he could touch her, one last time.

****

Rage and fear had held his heart, and love and fear for her. He’d told her that he’d killed the Sentinels, told her he could hear them – whispers at the edge of vision – and found the scroll. A blank scroll, tied with silver velvet, an ancient sign of peace his brother would remember. He’d let her think it was a map. She must have hope.

Her hand had been encased in her own glove as she touched his arm, interweaving auras through the chilly metal. “If Abelas was here, what would he tell you now?” she’d asked. He’d closed his eyes to hear the echoes. They’d told him to help her mend her arm, and so he did. They also told him _telanadas, nothing was inevitable._

She’d turned away, to fetch the other gauntlet, and he had not been able to resist. _Don’t go,_ he’d said, clutching at her left elbow. He’d let her kiss him, or she’d let him kiss her. He wasn’t quite sure which.

It had been everything he’d longed for: gentle, sweet and loving; and now it was over. Nothing like the kisses she had taken from his tranquil and his dreaming selves, warring in his mind for memory. He wrapped perfection in a silken gauze and placed it on a shelf to keep it safe, a treasure in his mind. The enemy was coming.

****

She’d challenged him to tell her what had really gone on in her dreams, and all around the room the Veil was shifting. He’d felt sick. Embarrassed. Confused, bewildered. Some of this was post-Tranquillity shock, but all of it?

“Desire and love are not the same,” he’d said, and realised that he’d **never** been Desire, he’d kept his vow.

_Besides, it is a virtue to be chaste. / You wanted to be a man. This is a part of it. / Not a **necessary** part of it._

He’d remembered Falon’Din’s laughter, merry at the thought of love, remembered he had vowed that he would never make his brother envy. His love had been pure. When he’d faltered, he’d drawn back. And Falon’Din had loved Virlath, had loved them both, enough to leave the runes and risk the Nightmare tracking back to him.

His head had ached. He’d tried to tell her what she ought to know, to listen. “Virla, it is right that I should suffer,” he’d insisted. _Love is complicated,_ she’d replied, holding his burning hand off from his face.

He couldn’t remember casting the flames, and wondered if the demon had already found him then. They would have to leave this place soon. The fog would only hold a little longer, and he could not risk the lives of those who’d come to camp around Aratishan. They did not deserve to be unwitting victims: if spared, they could fight.

He’d tried to tell her that she might be right to doubt her trust in him, that he was here under false pretences.

But the words had twisted from him. Inside, Envy was already feeding.

****

He’d fought back, and focused on his breathing, clamping down on words to make sure they were his. If he didn’t feel, it couldn’t find him. He’d known the only way that he could fight for long was to shift to dragon form.

The only way that she could fight at all, he’d reminded himself, was if he led her to the great eluvian, and Mythal’s soul. No time should be lost in making that secure, now that Abelas no longer guarded it on his behalf.

“Where are we going?” she’d asked, as he’d brought the Aratishan eluvian to life.

“First, the Shrine of Fen’Harel,” he’d said. “Then, to meet the author of the runes apparently behind my fresco.”

Virla had asked him who he meant, and something with his voice had said: “It would be easier to show you.”

He would have told her then, but Envy stopped him.

****

A coward, he had talked about the stone Qunari, checked her hand. Admired the budding trees. Talked about his brother, and the way he might have planted runes in Dagna’s mind. Watched the ravens in the sky, and even then he’d not found words to warn her. Told her about the Mother’s soul; that it was her or Morrigan who must be made to take it; that it would let her shapeshift into dragon form; that it was not corrupted by the Blight.

And now, it was coming back. There was no time. She was so beautiful, and there was no time, back here, again.

“I wish I had had time to c… court you,” he said to Virla, feeling a blush spread down from the tips of his ears.

She put her hand upon his arm again, causing his heart to skip a beat, asking what was troubling him. The flaring of emotions pulled the demon closer. The walls within his mind began to crumble, and his soul was screaming.

Terrified, Solas found himself explaining. There was no time to court her, only to explain that he was going to sleep with her, birth more dragons – _elvhen –_ before the Nightmare came. _Surely it is in the Fade,_ she countered.

He could feel the demon all around him, tearing at the Veil in all four hands. Laughing in the sound of his own voice. Abelas reminded him there would be respite when they went through the eluvian: demons found the Crossroads hard to navigate. But first, his Virla had to understand she had to stay in dragon form, take the soul of Mythal willingly. _You told me that I’d lied to you. I cannot lie._ The demon’s words were echoes in his mouth.

“It is waiting just across the Veil.” He was struggling to breathe. “Envy’s mastery is hiding in plain sight. Great dragons sleep with half their minds awake, so we would have a chance to counter it. I hope.”

“I said that I would be your mistress,” she said, and he thought _bride_ and _whore_. “I will do this.”

“I did not want this for you, Virla,” he said. It would not let him look at her. “I’m not sure it will even work.”

Her hands touched his cheeks: one warm and soft, the other cold in its metal glove. “I’m not sure that I’m doing it for you. The Dalish brought me up to do my duty for the clan. If you need me to bear children, I will do that.”

He watched her as she walked to the eluvian, and crushed her elvhen gauntlet in the hands behind his back.

He should have told her then. _Ar lath, ’ma Virla._

He should – he really should – have told her.

But it was now too late to say goodbye.

  



	48. I stop somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VLT: 1 Cloudreach, 9:45 Dragon  
> CLT: _missing, last sighting H4-01-AE29793310BB_

Watching as she’d walked to the eluvian, far too many eyes upon her back beyond his own.

He couldn’t remember now, when it had fallen into place, his plan; or even how he’d sewn himself together. Each half of his mind returned a different story: a tapestry of loss and longing, woven on a rigid iron frame.

The thought of all that iron sickened him, like memories of Erasthenes, a cage to harness lightning.

His head spun and his vision blurred. Nauseous and drunk, like a spirit maddened by the rocks that wouldn’t float. Like a rock that floated through the madness of the spirit, and stayed constant. The two parts of himself remained disjoint, and while they did…

…the demon could not quite achieve possession of his body. It tried. It had his mouth, but not his legs; his hands but not his eyes. Sundered, like the world was sundered. The Veil remained in place, and chaos stuttered.

Hope flared in his heart.

At the same moment, Virla stepped through the eluvian, and the whole world burst with light. It temporarily blinded all of them, the blast of power throwing back the demon. He freed his hands and mind enough to cast, half-running, half-throwing himself at the mirror through the Fade.

He slammed the door shut on the demon, and found himself looking down at Her.

 

The forest had burned. Burned away, they’d told him. Incinerated, obliterated. Nothing left but ash.

 

His brother slept beneath the rock, and he had slept in desert sands, walking dreams of woods until they flourished. Flemeth’s cottage nestled in the swamps: empty, long abandoned. Trees and weeds had not reclaimed the home. Mythal’s soul did not belong to humans.

She’d known he would come. This was where he’d killed her. This was where she’d split him into pieces.

Over and over and over again, the cycle of death and destruction.

 

He looked down, heavy, weighed with iron. This was no false Mythal, no spirit bent on vengeance. This girl loved him, worshipped and adored him with a fervour he had never objectively deserved, and still did not.

Virlath had no conception of the power she now wielded, no conception…

“How does it feel?” he asked, his mouth dry. The demon had them trapped. It had wanted to be in his body for aeons, he now knew: to see, to hear, to be alive. To make the journey to exotic Rivain, dance as an Orlesian peasant, court the girl who held the flame.

It would not be satisfied with that.

 

Light bloomed within her eyes and danced across her skin. It briefly lit her cheekbones, echo of her vallaslin.

“I can feel… it singing,” she said, a smile of pure joy lighting her face. “Like tiny snowflakes, dancing flames.”

“The memories will sharpen up,” he said. His heart leapt in exultation as he watched her stretch her arms out, flexing her newly recreated hand in wonder. “Though that may take days, or weeks, or years.”

The web of feelings he had kept in check within the Fade were pulsing, living, real and growing here.

They would call the demon to him, but he did not care, not now.

Like sorting an invisible deck of cards, copying a blizzard full of snowflakes, moving a mountain of sand by grains, the demon’s task was finite. It would eventually triumph. He might die, and all the world die with him…

But that was in the future, and the future did not matter. This was now. All the time they’d have together…

“Be a dragon,” he urged, then chuckled at her incredulous expression. He sat down beside the eluvian, cross-legged in front of the huge stone wolf, his armour gleaming brightly. “Take some time to practice.”

 

Logic fought back hard, told him to expect the demon. He had to be more real than her, more powerful, the one that Envy _must_ desire to be. Pride would be his downfall. It will be here soon, it told him. A minute at the most.

He didn’t want to know.

 

He wanted to feel, to feel, to feel, to feel, to feel.

She landed clumsily. A silver flash of light, and a slender elf replaced the azure dragon. He stood up, denying reality for as long as he could, ignoring the demon’s words within his mouth. The demon wanted him to kiss her.

A growing horror beat within his heart. “I always kiss you at this time of day,” he heard her say.

Words rang forth, not his: “I want the other half of me to feel it. No point in creating any more envy.”

The air of studied arrogance was perfect. Perhaps too perfect. Virlath drew back slightly, pausing before she replied. “That’s _not funny_ ,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Shouldn’t we be getting going?”

His arm was around her waist, his kiss as gentle as a dying breath, the briefest of embraces.

Solas saw it as if glimpsed through tunnels deep and dark and lone. Cut through a Fereldan mountain, caverns to a wyvern hole. A lake there and an ocean drowned in; stone harts and two broken souls.

 

He tried to stop feeling, groped around for iron. What else was there, but cause and effect? The demon was too strong. They couldn’t stay as elves, they had to fight as dragons. _Mala suledin nadas. We must endure._

Blood pulsed in his neck and groin, inflamed by the sweet scent of her. Far too late to turn back now. The demon lurked no matter where he turned. “ _Ar lath ma, vhenan,_ ” it whispered through his mouth. “I’ll be right behind you. I will guide you. Fly through this eluvian then straight towards the sun.”

The cards were ranked from ace to king, and fractal flakes arrayed themselves in order on a new-built mountain.

The paths had all collapsed to one. She swirled and soared out of his arms, a brilliant bright creation. He couldn’t take his eyes away… nor move his legs. No scream escaped his mouth. His heart kept beating.

 

Only his will remained. His hands turned into claws, and they were black. Rising up on ancient wings, he soared through the eluvian, and chased her. Permission had been sought and granted. _The Dalish brought me up to do my duty to the clan. I said that I would be your mistress. Love is complicated._

Solas flew on up, and up and up, and seized her. Envy hurtled through the Fade. The demon had his mouth, but he ignored it, drinking in her scent, drowning her in musk. Instinct older than time rolled her in his grasp; dragons had no need for foreplay. She was liquid magic, moulded by his power, elvhen once again and _his_. Remembering how her lips had parted for him daily, supple naked form, he slid, hard and throbbing, into her, and felt favour. Thrusting and twisting in the air, a harmony of endless bliss penetrating and echoing even unto the doors of the Black City.

Screaming in ecstasy, he opened his eyes to the Void.

  


Everything was black. He screamed in terror.

  


After a time, he looked again, more closely. Deep within the darkness of the Fade, a tiny golden spark was glowing. As he watched, it branched and grew, through deep roads, cubes and dragonspace; fractal time and snowflakes.

With stumbling feet, he ran towards the Light.

  


****

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be another part of the series coming in due course, fitting in before _Such a pilgrimage were sweet_. Hope you liked this insight into Solas' perspective of events.


End file.
